Michael G. (Mike) Lescarbeau joined Carmichael Lynch as President and Chief Creative Officer in May of 2007. He assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer in January, 2009.

Doug Spong, APR, is president and founder of Carmichael Lynch Spong Public Relations. Carmichael Lynch Spong ranks among the 20 largest PR agencies in the U.S. with offices in Minneapolis and New York. The firm represents such choice clients as SUPERVALU, Jack Link's, Calphalon and Sherwin-Williams.

Doug founded Carmichael Lynch Spong in September 1990 after spending nine years at Colle + McVoy Public Relations as senior vice president, managing director, and a member of the parent agency’s board of directors.

An accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Doug is a past president of the 500-member Minnesota chapter. He is a current member of PRSA’s Counselors Academy; two-year chair of PRSA’s Honors and Awards Committee; founding member and treasurer of the Council of Public Relations Firms; and member of the Council’s strategic planning committee.

During his career, Doug has received five presidential citations from PRSA for extraordinary service to the society. He is an award-winning writer as well.

Doug earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in journalism from Iowa State University. 

As CFO and Managing Partner of Carmichael Lynch, Mark is responsible for the Administrative, Support and Production functions. Prior to joining CL in 2002, Mark was at Plasmon Corporation for two years as CFO. He's a CPA with past experience at Ernst & Young and as a Finance Director at the Pillsbury Company. Mark has lived his whole life in the Twin Cities and graduated from the University of Minnesota.

He is married to Jill whom he met at the Pillsbury Company. They have three children: Derek who is 5 and twin 3-year-old girls named Nicole and Jessica. Mark enjoys the outdoors in particular hunting and fishing. He also enjoys golf and time spent up north at the lake with the family.

Dave Damman joined Carmichael Lynch for the second time in April, 2011 as Executive Creative Officer. He quickly proved himself a strong leader and was promoted to Chief Creative Officer in February 2012.

His celebrated work includes breakthrough campaigns for a who’s who of brands. Since beginning his career twenty years ago at New York’s Saatchi & Saatchi, Damman has held the creative director title at numerous top agencies, and immediately previous to joining Carmichael Lynch, he helmed the creative department at Fallon Worldwide.

Dave Damman’s work has been recognized in the U.S. and internationally by all the most respected creative award competitions, including the One Show, The New York Art Director’s Club and Britain’s D&AD.

An art director by trade, Damman has shared his keen eye for good design with many young hopefuls as a founding instructor at the Minneapolis School of Advertising. An admitted serial entrepreneur, he also co-founded the acclaimed Atlanta creative group Damman Pearce. 

Marcus Fischer is president and chief strategy officer of Carmichael Lynch. He is responsible for marrying insights and execution, assuring that our creative work achieves results that meet or exceed our clients’ expectations.

Marcus has developed and executed winning strategies on behalf of iconic brands like BMW, Porsche, Starbucks, Target, Dairy Queen and Purina. His work has been recognized by the most respected creative and strategic competitions, including the EFFIEs, the One Show, and the Webby Awards.

In 2011, he was honored with the 40 under 40 award by the Minneapolis/St.Paul Business Journal. He is active in the community, and serves on the boards of the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota and Second Harvest Heartland. 

Steve Knapp leads Brand Activation, a discipline developed by Carmichael Lynch to help clients manage the explosion of media options available today. Using his deep background in connection planning, he makes sense of an increasingly complex array of touch points and determines the right level of support for creative ideas across paid, earned and owned platforms.

Prior to Carmichael Lynch, Steve served as vice president and media director for OLSON in Minneapolis.  He pioneered innovative and effective programs in social media, ambient and experiential marketing, branded content and traditional media for all clients including Nike, General Mills, and Northwestern Mutual. Under his leadership, agency media billings increased by more than 22 times and department staff by eight times through organic, new business and media-only client growth. 

Before OLSON, he was an associate media director and vice president at Campbell Mithun. During his 12-year tenure, heworked on major agency clients H&R Block, Kimberly Clark, General Mills, Moneygram, Land O Lakes, and UnitedHealth Group.

Steve’s achievements have been recognized with  multiple EFFIE awards, MEDIAWEEK’s Media Plan Of The Year, MEDIAPOST’s Creative Media Award and Marketing Sherpa’s Viral Hall of Fame. 

After 25 years in agency media departments, Joe Germscheid is right at home as our Director of Consumer Engagement. Before being tapped to lead the consumer engagement group at Carmichael Lynch, he specialized in digital media, reporting, analytics andoptimization processes.

From national network TV for major national advertisers to B-to-B email campaigns directed at niche audiences, Joe knows all media executions require attention to detail and diligent stewardship. Through his career, Joe has worked on a variety of clients across nearly every conceivable category – from agricultural accounts and B-to-B with smaller agencies, to large CPG companies (General Mills and Nestle Purina), financial institutions (Citibank, Lincoln Financial Group and Travelers Insurance), travel (National and Alamo Rental Car, Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Holiday Inn Express) and automotive (Subaru of America) brands.

When he’s not at the office you’ll likely find Joe coaching and teaching fitness classes at the YMCA. He’s a certified group cycle and spinning instructor who enjoys road biking when the Minnesota winters don’t force him from the road. He’s a graduate of St. John’s University with a degree in Psychology and takes pride in mentoring and leading committees for i612, the local Minneapolis digital media organization. Joe lives in suburban Minneapolis with his wife and family of five kids. 

Joe joined Carmichael Lynch in 2006 as Director of Integrated Production. His impact was felt immediately with work shot in best-for-the-project locations (such as India and South Africa), by award-winning directors, and containing the best, often never before used tracks (Guns N’ Roses to Wizard of Oz). Joe has guided clients through the early learning curve of digital and web-ready video, its challenges and its efficiencies.

A Minnesota Music Award runner-up (come on, Prince is the competition!), Joe moved into film and the Arizona Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences. With a passion for bringing creative ideas to life, he landed at Fallon. There, he produced work for Holiday Inn Express, BMW, Citibank, Children's Defense Fund, Subway, Georgia Pacific, AND 1 Shoes, Lee Jeans, Traveler's Insurance, Nordstrom, PBS, and more.

His high standards have been acknowledged with numerous awards (Effies, D&AD, London VFX, One Show, Creativity, Shoot, Boards, Adweek).

Outside of work he’ll be hanging out with his wife and daughter – likely watching films and listening to music. 

Randy Hughes joined Carmichael Lynch as a senior art director in 2000. He quickly rose through the creative ranks with award-winning work for clients across the agency’s roster, earning top national and international honors for breakthrough campaigns on behalf of American Standard, Porsche, Gibson Guitars and many others.

Hughes is the originator of the Subaru Love campaign, which has not only been universally lauded for its creativity, but has served as a catalyst for the car brand’s recent record sales growth.

Since 2007, when Hughes created the first, emotionally driven work for then-new client Subaru of America, the brand has surged past eleven other automakers on the list of America’s best selling cars. Left in the dust have been big names like Cadillac, BMW and Volkswagen.

TIME Magazine named “Baby Driver,” created by Hughes, as one of its top ten commercials of 2010. Featuring a father and his two real-life daughters, the Subaru spot has been publicly recognized by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who has called on other manufacturers to emulate its heartfelt safety message. 

Julie oversees day-to-day operations for PR firm Carmichael Lynch Spong's clients and staff in New York, Chicago and its Minneapolis headquarters.

Previously, Julie served as the chief client relations officer for the firm, overseeing the client relationship management (CRM) program and creating processes and best practices that attract and retain blue-chip clients.

Julie has received the profession's highest honors for developing innovative campaigns that achieve business results. In the past four years alone her client work has won 31 awards, including four from PRWeek, 13 national Silver and Bronze Anvil awards and 13 local PRSA awards and one SABRE award. Her deep portfolio of experience includes strategic planning, leading holistic marketing teams, media relations, special events, internal communications, cause branding, ideation and new product launch management. She has also received personal recognition for her achievements.

In 2009, Julie was named one of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal's Forty Under 40 honorees and a finalist for PR News' Account Director of the Year. Previously Julie was senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard and worked at Valentine Radford and Morgan & Myers Communications.

She has a bachelor's degree in agricultural journalism with emphasis in food science and public relations from the University of Missouri, Columbia.