“WebGoddess” Dawn Shears has found her niche on the north Oregon coast since moving here two years ago.
Web proves to be her ‘perfect match’
“WebGoddess” Dawn Shears has found her niche on the north Oregon coast since moving here two years ago.
Web designer Dawn Shears finds her niche on Oregon’s north coast
By Dave Fisher
The Citizen
A resident of the north Oregon coast for the past two years, Dawn Shears is reinventing herself and so far seems pleased with the results.
A Web and marketing communications professional the past 13 years, with 30 years cumulative experience in Web and print design, Shears intuitively knew she belonged here when she was only 15 years old. “We came through the area on a family vacation in the ’70s… and ever since I’ve tried to shape my life to get back here,” she said. A family picture taken during the trip shows the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean taken from one of the turnouts along Neahkahnie Mountain. “I didn’t realize I was actually here until after I moved here.”
Born and raised in San Diego, the Nehalem resident has fallen back on what she knows best – Web design and development, but at a much slower pace than she is used to.
At 17, she was making $2 an hour at a “big printing and mailing operation in San Diego” where she learned how to operate all of the equipment. She graduated to the firm’s art department and never looked back. From there, she was hired by a San Diego-based advertising agency. Interestingly, one of the individuals who had a hand in hiring her was Lorraine Ortiz, herself a Southern California transplant who landed in the Nehalem Bay area.
Along the way, Shears owned and operated her own design studio, received her masters degree from Southern Illinois University, continued to act as a Web consultant and, most recently, worked for Jenkon, Inc., a software company in Vancouver, Washington, as a Web and search engine optimization (SEO) professional.
While clients she worked with from across the U.S. and Canada continue to call her, Shears focus is now on the local market. “It’s only been during the past year that I felt I could serve the small business community of the area,” she said. Shears says she never met or had a one-on-one relationship with any of her clients during her professional career, but that has all changed with her move to the Oregon coast.
“This is all new to me,” Shears said of meeting with local area business owners and working with them to develop and maintain their own Web sites. In creating the Manzanita Farmers Market, Shears employed the use of a new content management tool that allows the farmers market staff to login and make changes to the site text and images themselves. Among the 20+ local clients are Cart’m, Fourth Street Gallery, Parinamah Wellness Center, NeahCasa and FrogTown (One World Books). Her services include Web site development, research, Internet marketing, search engine optimization and training.
Keeping customers satisfied is key, according to Shears, who “bends over backwards” to keep clients happy. That includes making Web sites affordable for small business owners. “I don’t have to do so much marketing if everyone is super happy,” she added.
Enjoying a new sense of freedom since moving to the coast, Shears is inclined nowadays to turn the computer off and go for a hike when she feels like it. In addition to having deep-seeded passion for the natural sciences, Shears enjoys gardening, foraging and cooking. Having finally found her way back home, she can’t think of another place she’d rather be. “It’s a real treasure here,” she says. “This is a wonderful place for healing and spirituality.”
For more information about Dawn Shears, visit www.NeahkahnieWeb.com or e-mail her at WebGoddess@nehalemtel.net.
Article courtest of the North Coast Citizen:
http://northcoastcitizen.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=4314&TM=45524.26
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