Who We Are

• Scott Hildula, Principal 
• Chuck Gathard, Creative Director
• Jaclyn Andrews, Account Supervisor
• Fred Raker, Writer
• MK, Illustrator
• Carlo Silvio, Videographer

Scott Hildula is founder of RedUmbrella Group and specializes in strategic messaging development and safety communications. He manages multiple global safety and reliability communications campaigns for the one of the world’s largest companies. It’s a mission that is allows him to connect with line workers and supervisors around the world and help keep them safe.

Prior to starting RedUmbrella Group, Scott was vice president of media relations and messaging for Cohn & Wolfe, a global public relations firm. His clients included Deloitte Consulting, Landor Associates, Intel Corp., ChevronTexaco, ADP and several start-ups. He was previously an in-house marketing consultant for HP.

Scott is an award-winning journalist and wrote for a variety of business and technology publications. He was a wire reporter for United Press International (UPI), a correspondent for Money magazine, and a foreign correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle in Brazil. Scott was part of a reporting team at the San Francisco Business Times that won the Association of American Business Publications breaking news award for coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

While a staff reporter for the Peninsula TimesTribune and the San Jose Business Journal in the ‘80s, Scott covered defense electronics companies and computer hardware manufacturers in Silicon Valley, regulatory and political issues, and wrote business features and company profiles.

Scott holds a B.A. in Political Science from Grinnell College in Iowa, walks his Labrador retriever every morning, and drinks soy lattes even though he owns an old Ford pickup truck.

Chuck Gathard is our hands-on Creative Director, responsible for visual storytelling, graphic design, photography, multimedia production, and copywriting supervision.

After graduating from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Chuck began his career as a reporter/photographer at the St. Louis Business Journal, an early innovator in local business news publishing. From there, he joined Coca-Cola USA as an associate editor in the Internal Publications department where he developed, photographed, and wrote stories for employee magazines, newspapers and special publications. He joined the San Jose Business Journal in 1984 where he photographed many of the most influential leaders in the technology and venture capital industries.

After leaving the Business Journal in 1987, Chuck freelanced for a wide range of clients including: Forbes, Forbes ASAP, Barron’s, Upside Magazine, Business Marketing, American Banker, American Express, Comerica Bank, Burlingame Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Price Waterhouse. During this period he fell in love with the potential of digital storytelling, first on CD-ROM and in early 1994 on the web.

Between 1995 and 2005 Chuck held a series of web design and technology management positions. From 1999 to 2003 he directed CNET's corporate intranet group and was responsible for user interface design, software development and intranet communications strategy and content development.

Chuck’s deep understanding of interactive media and 30 years as a photojournalist earned him an invitation to judge the editing and interactive divisions of the prestigious University of Missouri Pictures of the Year competition in 2002.

Immediately prior to joining RedUmbrella Group, Chuck was the Technology Director of the America 24/7 Book project, the largest collaborative photographic book project in history. He was responsible for designing and implementing all software, hardware, network infrastructure, databases, and workflow processes required to collect, catalogue and edit more than 250,000 digital images contributed by 7,000 photographers.

Jaclyn Andrews is the account supervisor. She keeps our world spinning by ensuring all our creative projects and communication campaigns stay on schedule and in budget.

Jaclyn holds a B.A. in Advertising from Western Michigan University. She began her career at Doner Advertising as an account associate for U.S. Cellular. After Doner, she was studio manager for Howrani Studios where she managed client relationships.

She combines a strong sense of purpose with an unflappable personality and sharp wit. This keeps the creative types in steady orbit around the giant corporate hairballs.

Fred Raker began his illustrious writing career for RedUmbrella Group in 2005 as a creator of scrappy press releases for scrappy start-up Scoot Mobile Money. From there, he took on the responsibility of crafting innumerable speeches for Chevron’s marketing team. Other work for Chevron includes several safety training video scripts and a safety-focused cartoon strip.

Not your garden variety writer, Fred got his start 30 years ago as a staff writer for the ABC-TV late-night comedy/variety series “Fridays,” which featured Michael Richards and Larry David. From there, it was on to the prime-time “No Soap, Radio,” an ABC-TV sitcom/sketch show starring Steve Guttenberg. Shortly thereafter, Fred found himself working on the granddaddy of them all, “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

For the past 20 years, Fred has been plying his craft in the marketing and advertising arena. Concepts, dialogue, and structure—the scriptwriter’s hat trick—have been his signature as he has successfully made the transition from television writer to a writer of video scripts as well as live events and trade shows. His vast experience cuts across a wide array of industries, including real estate, banking, high-tech, lodging, and energy.

Other arrows in Fred’s creative quiver include advertising copywriting and web site content writing.

MK is a San Francisco based artist and designer. Originally from Madrid, Spain, she started working as a freelance illustrator for children books in 1993 and graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts in 1995. After six years as an illustrator she decided to move to San Francisco and study animation at the Academy of Art University.

She now splits her time between cartooning, illustration and art direction for advertising. She loves doodling, designing characters, and cats.

Carlo Silvio is our award-winning videographer. At a young age, Carlo started his career as an intern for Film Threat Magazine in Los Angeles where he wrote comedy pieces and film reviews.

Carlo left Los Angeles to further his education at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. By his third year, he founded a successful film facility and started teaching editing and helping students get their film projects off the ground. By this time, he was working as an industry professional, filming many local music videos for Indie bands and labels. He was a shooter for KITS Live 105 concerts and directed several commercial pieces.

As the founder of Spoon Fed Films, Carlo offered a black box shooting stage and a film editing bay. The company produced broadcast commercials, music videos, narrative, animation and corporate works. Spoon Fed created several national broadcast commercials and had films at many national and international film festivals. Carlo's clients included Ford, ATTIK, Wadsworth, PBRA, Macy's, Barclay's, Sun Microsystems, KBLX, 24 Hour Fitness, 3DO, and MTV.

Carlo then dove into the feature film industry. Specializing in documentaries, he has made pieces for films such as The Californians, Mistress of Spices, and Darwin Awards.

Recently, under his new company, Cowboycoffee Pictures, he's made films for William Sonoma / Pottery Barn, Make Magazine, EngineeringTV, TheBodyPositive, University of California at Berkeley, WineTaste TV, and Stanford University. He continues to develop independent shorts and feature projects.

Carlo brings the eye of a cinematographer to RedUmbrella Group’s video productions but is always willing to take off his beret when a piece needs to be more corporate than ‘artsy.’