As Alan tuned in to watch his alma mater, the Fighting Illini, take on Northwestern, another Thanksgiving memory surfaces. He’s suddenly back on Green Street in Champaign, hosting an overeducated and charmingly blunt Northwestern student from Long Island he took to a pledge dance. After a lively night out, she woke up, stretched, and said, “Last night was fun, but I’m not going to Murphy’s or Damon’s with you to watch sports teams. Can’t you just Google a Thai place?”
Alan perked up. Google? Months earlier, he’d been paid by a marketing firm to test search engines like Ask Jeeves, HotBot, Excite, Lycos, Dogpile, and Yahoo, all while sitting in his Champaign apartment listening to the glorious static‑scream handshake of a 56K modem. He thought he knew the entire search landscape until that off‑hand remark introduced him to something he hadn’t tried yet. It sparked the first flicker of excitement about where the internet was headed.
Not long after, living in the Sherman Brothers building at 1084 N. Milwaukee, Alan shared the space with a red haired pale roommate who caused endless plumbing disasters, thanks to excessive toilet‑paper usage. After one memorable flood, Alan had to use his phone to track down a plumber immediately. That frantic, late‑night search drove home the real‑world power of finding information quickly reinforcing his growing interest in Google.
Those early memories ended up shaping Alan’s path. He moved to Chicago, began selling Google Ads, and ultimately managed national teams. Today, he’s deeply proud of his St. Petersburg, Cleveland & Phoenix based PPC and SEO teams.
Their work can be viewed here:
PPC: https://www.ourownadstore.com/all-google-ad-campaigns
SEO: https://www.ourownadstore.com/all-seo-campaigns
These solutions are available at https://www.ourownadstore.com and soon newly recruited DMCs will be rolling them out to businesses nationwide.
Alan is thankful to have discovered Google and to have helped many amazing business owners become the answer to the question when they're actually ready to make a decision & not just thinking about it or asking around on social media.