Museum Guide Experts

MEET THE EXPERIENCE GUIDE TEAM

Our team is comprised of outstanding individuals who bring passion and excellence to their work every day–whether it’s building masterful data architectures, developing first-in-kind AR experiences or assisting customers with digital strategies. Our backgrounds range from art history to anthropology, finance to design, and customer service to engineering. As diverse as our experiences are, all team members have at least one thing in common–we love what we do!

As CEO, Suzie oversees the day to day operations at Guru. She honed her skills while working as Senior Account & Operations Manager for Antenna International, where her portfolio included the Smithsonian, Empire State Building, the Museum of Modern Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She was at the helm of all on-site staffed operations in the United States, providing Suzie the knowledge and the skills to deliver exceptional service and the ultimate visitor experience. She is a Jill-of-all-trades and a woodworking expert. She is not a CEO to sit behind a desk - she will absolutely get her hands dirty onsite with clients when duty calls!

Do you ever deposit your checks using your phone? You can thank Clay Shinn for that. On top of being a tech expert, he is also an avid traveler. He has visited over 50 countries, and is planning on completing a 50-mile trek in New Zealand for his 50th birthday. (The number 50 is a recurring motif at this juncture in his life.) At Guru, we know him as a typical San Diego native. What does that mean? He loves shorts. Before every meeting, he texts the team, “Is this a pants meeting?" It usually is.

Mary has worked with museums and cultural attractions from Alaska to Australia, advising on the best digital strategy and content approaches to engage a variety of diverse audiences. Her expertise in user-testing and creative content workshops has been put to use at highly varied cultural sites like Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks; Bethel Woods Center for the Arts – the Historic Site of Woodstock; The Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. She is not just our Business Development expert, but a reliable consultant to our partners, bringing energy and passion (and probably dynamite take-away lunch) to each new client project. Outside of work life she can be found either hiking, or eating her way around town, often visiting friends and families across the states to do the same.

Over the last decade, Dana has worked as Creative Director, Director of Content, and Head Copywriter developing brand voice, tone, and strategy for various businesses and industries. After earning a BA in Advertising and her Master’s degree in English, Dana managed content development and strategy in areas ranging from digital marketing and PR to non-profits. Over the last 6 years, Dana has managed content for many Guru-powered apps including Space Center Houston, San Diego Museum of Art, The Dali Museum and more. Her ability to listen to and understand institution goals, as well as translate complicated subject matters into accessible and enjoyable stories, enables her to manage accessible and memorable experiences in the digital space. When she’s not managing creative projects, Dana can be found at her sewing machine whipping up pop-culture-wear and listening to Jane Austen novels.

Bridget Reilly O’Carroll has a lifelong commitment to the humanities. Having worked in a range of roles as a writer, video producer, video editor, content manager, and digital strategist she understands content production and distribution from many angles. Bridget studied Arts Administration and Digital Media Production at Butler University, combining her passion for the arts with her digital skills. She worked for 5 years at a major contemporary art museum in digital content production, focusing primarily on audio and video.

At Guru Experience Co. Bridget works with clients to assess their content needs, guide them through building out their project, and managing the content with them post-launch. Bridget has worked in museums and in online media on a variety of digital projects including educational video, documentaries, scholarly publications, interpretive interactives, digital signage, social media, game development, and content strategy. She values working with all partners regardless of their creative experience, and enjoys helping clients tell their own stories in new meaningful ways.

Trey has worked with Augmented and Virtual reality since college, learning the best practices to push this new type of design out into the mainstream world. Trey studied Game Design and Animation at Oklahoma Christian University. Trey has won gold in the Oklahoma Advertising Awards for an AR project that helped show kids what they could learn at the OU Flight Academy. Since graduating, Trey has kept pushing AR and VR Design to be more than just fun games, but rather a useful tool for gaining new perspective and enacting change. He is experienced in using almost every AR, VR, and design tool including AR foundation, ARKit, ARcore, Zappar, Vuforia, Unity3D, Unreal Engine, Godot, Photoshop, Blender, and Maya. This makes Trey a teammate for achieving all sorts of interactive experiences. After work you can find Trey cooking, playing games, or getting involved with the local art community in Colorado.

Kealy graduated from Roanoke College with a major in History and a minor in Theatre Arts. Her love of all things related to museums led her to a 17 year career at the world's largest museum and research complex. During her time there, Kealy loved nothing more than roaming the archives of American history or exploring priceless gems and minerals. As the Product Development Manager for Smithsonian Enterprises, she had the privilege of working with the world's leading historians, curators, politicians, musicians, chefs to develop educational content for children, adults and families. Kealy lives in Virginia with her family including her firefighter husband and their two daughters. In her free time, she enjoys listening to Sinatra-era music and movies, Broadway plays, watching cooking shows and looking for treasures from years gone by in antique stores.

CEO, Balboa Park Online Collaborative

Nik Honeysett is CEO of the Balboa Park Online Collaborative, a technology non-profit consultancy that provides support, development and strategy for the museums in Balboa Park, San Diego and beyond. Previously, he was Head of Administration for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, (www.getty.edu) overseeing budget, personnel, operational and administrative services across the Getty's two sites, in Brentwood and Malibu. Prior to this role, he lead the Getty's Web Group, responsible for all aspects of their main website, intranets and web development activities. Before moving to Los Angeles in 2000, he spent 12 years at Cogapp (www.cogapp.com), a UK-based consultancy specializing in the publication of interactive and online multimedia for the cultural sector in Europe and the USA. He is a former chair of AAM's Media & Technology Standing Professional Committee and their Standing Professional Committee Council. He currently sits on the boards of AAM (www.aam-us.org), the Museum Computer Network (www.mcn.edu) and Guru (www.gurumuseumsystems.co), and teaches a course on the culture and management of museum technology through Johns Hopkins' Museum Studies Masters Program. He holds an undergraduate degree in Physics and a postgraduate degree in Electronics.

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