Smiles Included

We’re thrilled to announce the addition of Gloria Vaquera to the SmilesIncluded team. She has a background in publishing and video media, and has spent her career creating content that connects with people.

Gloria co-founded the video production company Innovative Touch, based in Las Cruces, NM. After 9 years as vice-president/director of Innovative Touch, she co-founded turevistalatina.com, an empowering bilingual resource for the Latino community. Gloria also co-founded and launched Tu Revista Latina, a bilingual lifestyle magazine that celebrates Latino achievement and culture.

SI co-founders Ernest Tarango and Susan Hustace admire her entrepreneurial spirit, operational excellence and energy. Says Susan, “I’m excited to pass the torch to Gloria; she’s an in-the-trenches leader, and shares our vision and commitment to building a solid business while providing a great service for our audience.”

Welcome Gloria!

The times ahead are a great opportunity for us to come together as a community of caring persons and help each other ride out the economic storm. The connectivity afforded by the technology we’ve come to take for granted will truly find it’s highest and best use in the coming years.

At SmilesIncluded, we’ve been thinking about how we can best help the recovery process. Simply put, we must do all we can to spread the word about quality products of lasting value. We will broaden our focus to include smaller ticket items every parent needs, and include resale value estimates in reviews of larger ticket items. No parent has a single dollar to waste on a sippy cup that spills, and he or she may be very interested in what that fancy 3-wheel stroller can bring used.

We’ll work to ensure our forums provide a positive environment for parents to voice their opinions and connect with each other. We hope this will help you feel secure, and allow you to take back a little control in a world that can sometimes seem to be seriously out of control.

At this point it’s all behind the scenes, but we’re working on it…

Hi everyone. WHATS GOING ON AT SI YOU ASK?! Our site is undergoing a server change and backend additions.
Will be be up and running soon!

Tech Team!

It’s a new year!  And to start things off with a (figurative) bang, SI welcomes Michael Montoya to our team.  Michael has been a pioneer in online advertising and content monetization.  His years of experience coupled with his creativity when it comes to adding value to social networking communities is going to be vital to SIs ‘09 launch.  Co-founder, Ernest Tarango is especially happy to welcome Michael onboard–both are New Mexico natives and have seen a boom in technology and video production in their slice of the Sun Belt.  Michael will work out of SmilesIncluded’s Palo Alto office, but hopes to make it back to New Mexico on occasion.  The Bay Area is great for sea food and sourdough, but it’s hard to get those great Hatch chiles outide NM!

Today’s announcement Comes from Co-founder Susan Hustace. “All of us here at SI are very happy to add Michael Cramton to our staff as Managing Editor.  Michael has impressive depth of experience in creating and managing online content.  He understands the quality and the tone we want to establish, and maintain, in our written content.  He’s got the media know-how to get the job done, and he’s a parent, so he understands what our audience is looking for.  He’ll be a real asset as we move toward our ‘09 launch.”

SmilesIncluded has added another enthusiastic young talent to their team.  Ben La Marca joins as Director of Photography, responsible for using still images to illustrate our editorial content while developing and maintaining the signature look of the SI site.

 Says Ernest, “I am excited to add another committed, creative person to the group here at SI.  I know we’ve got a terrific product, and the fact that so many others have embraced our vision and joined the team tells me we’re on the right track.  We’ve got experienced writers, talented producers, highly educated professionals in child development, and we’ve added an award-winning photographer.  This pool of talent is both broad and deep, and I’m looking very much forward to getting our product out there!”

SmilesIncluded Co-Founder Ernest Tarango announced today that SI has forged an alliance with the Consumer Products Safety Commission. SmilesIncluded will feature an RSS Widget from the CPSC, allowing SI users to tell immediately if a product they are considering has been recalled by the CPSC.

Says Ernest, “This is another step forward in establishing SmilesIncluded.com as a one-stop, easy-to-use service website for our community.” Co-Founder Susan Hustace adds, “Because of all the recent recalls, parents and educators are nervous about making purchases, and understandably so. Every children’s product recall involves risk to a child. Part of our job at SmilesIncluded is to help minimize that risk. Now shoppers can use the SI site with more confidence than they might feel perusing store shelves. They can find out right away whether or not an item has been the focus of a recall.”

SmilesIncluded has added talented young video producer Rajeev Nirmalakhandan to their video review team. Raj’s resume is both broad and deep. A graduate of UCLA’s Film School he’s been producer, writer and/or director on countless film and video projects, has worked with top-flight studios including DreamWorks and Universal, and has fronted his own film and video production company. Says SI co-Founder Susan Hustace, “Raj is a real catch for us. I have been impressed with his originality, and his intuitive sense of what ‘works’ on video. He’s enormously creative and fits in well with the team we’ve put together.”

SmilesIncluded is happy to introduce our newest marketing and video team member, Randy Nargi. “Randy is a seasoned marketing executive with proven experience working with successful online companies, so we’re very excited to add him to the team,” says Ernest Tarango, SmilesIncluded Co-Founder and President of Marketing.  In addition to nearly two decades working as a marketing executive, Randy brings a unique skill set as a writer, producer, and web designer.  Welcome to SmilesIncluded, Randy!

We’re thrilled to announce five new members have joined our editorial staff! SmilesIncluded will be welcoming Cindy Mantegna, Angela Derrick, Theresa Adams, Cory Vas, and Judson Kusy to our work force. These five newest members of the editing team are trained in such pertinent areas as child development, pediatric occupational therapy, family relations, pediatric developmental evaluation, and the use of toys in developmental remediation. Many also hold advanced degrees in their fields.

“Adding these new editors really rounds out our editing staff,” says Ernest. “We now have a large, very talented group of reviewers and writers. They have so much experience working with and educating children across age groups, from infants to young teens. I’m very happy to have such a deep talent pool here at SmilesIncluded.”