PRO EDU Expands Operations To Software
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26th, 2021: Today PRO EDU is announcing three new senior managing partners and the expansion of our current products and services with the acquisition of Pocket Portfolio and Vysics Labs. This partnership will expand the products and services of quality educational content to now include beautiful website management technology for digital artists and advanced Photoshop Plugins for photographers and retouchers.
The newly structured leadership team consists of David Parish, Sef McCullough, and T.J Vytlacil as new managing partners to join CEO & Founder Gary Martin. The new four person team is the beginning foundation of a new infrastructure for education, management tools, and software to lead PRO EDU into the next phase of PRO EDU "2.0". This new partnership will bring an additional emphasis on business for artists seeking to manage their own companies with new tools and education focused to help creatives attract, gain, and retain customers with tools and education that working pro’s need.
“We’ve built the best education that enables artists to achieve their next level of PRO, and with the acquisition of Pocket Portfolio we are now providing the tools to help photographers run their business, present & curate their portfolio’s, interact with their clients, while spending less time retouching and more time creating. And this is just the beginning.” says Gary Martin, CEO at PRO EDU.
" It’s part of our long term plan to provide the core tools that creatives need to run their businesses and continually help expand their knowledge to run it ."
— Gary Martin
DAVID PARISH JOINS AS MANAGING PARTNER
Current Product Lead at PRO EDU David Parish will transition into a senior leadership role to ensure that the educational products PRO EDU creates continue to push the boundaries of quality in what educational content online can and will be. David Parish is a retired soldier in the US Army that spent the better part of the last decade pursuing, teaching, and helping adults learn about performance psychology from the University Of Pennsylvania.
“The reality we all need to grasp with every fiber of our being is that being a professional, being a PRO is a growth process. You never arrive at PRO; you earn the title, and then you re-earn it daily through perfect practice designed to push your boundaries. I started at PRO EDU as a customer 7 years ago and the quality of the content has made a dramatic impact in the quality of my work and the understanding of an artist” says David Parish, Product Lead at PRO EDU.
SEF MCCULLOUGH JOINS AS MANAGING PARTNER
PRO EDU is also joining forces with long-time Instructor and Senior Retoucher, Sef McCullough and is acquiring Vysics Labs, a software development platform set to deploy Photoshop Access Panels that allow retouchers expedite tedious tasks, create better work, and improve their workflow.
“It’s exciting to join PRO EDU full time in a leadership role and to focus 100% of my time on developing tools for retouchers with the backing of PRO EDU. I’ve spent countless hours at the highest levels working in Photoshop and know exactly where I want to improve the program. With the release of Tone Lab, Grain Lab, and Edge Lab as our first launch, I’m really looking forward to releasing these tools to the public.” says Sef McCullough, Plugin Lead at PRO EDU.
" Finding success as a working artist has always been more about finding the right tools and processes to speed your workflow and make creating accessible, fluid, and repeatable. A consistently excellent body of work is necessary to earn the trust of paying clients. ."
— Sef McCullough
T.J VYTLACIL JOINS AS MANAGING PARTNER
PRO EDU has also acquired Pocket Portfolio from Josh Rossi at Full-Time Photographer and is set to launch Pocket Portfolio November 16th, 2021 with updated pricing and features to coincide in the PRO EDU ecosystem. New managing partner T.J Vytlacil will head the development and management of Pocket Portfolio and will be working closely with the community at PRO EDU to develop a platform solely for visual artists.
“True working professionals know that a website is the core of your business and your portfolio should be an artist’s calling card . Pocket Portfolio already features several of the services you use and combines them into your website service, saving you time switching between services like file backup, password protected client galleries, image review, and file delivery. Pocket Portfolio is so simple to use that updating your portfolio will no longer feel like a laborious chore. We cannot wait to begin the development of new features.” says T.J Vytlacil, Pocket Lead at PRO EDU.
PODCAST ORIGIN STORY
Take a listen to the entire story and get to know the three new managing partners of PRO EDU.
ABOUT PRO EDU
PRO EDU began its journey in 2014 with its founder’s vision to remove barriers to learning the secrets of working professionals in photography and post-production. It was never enough just to target good artists and ask them to share the secrets to how they create. To work with PRO EDU, they would need to be experienced professionals who possess the necessary knowledge to create great art and make a living doing it. At PRO EDU, we have always been artists working for other artists, bringing you access to everything we wished we had had earlier in our careers. It has always been about streamlining the path to craft mastery by giving access to how career professionals act and think. Today, we’re taking that next step to be our own next level of PRO.
ABOUT NEW MANAGING PARTNERS
About David Parish: David Parish started the PRO EDU journey as a client. At the time working as a Soldier with the Army’s Center for Enhanced Performance, David was driven to understand what made elite performers tic. Originally using the PRO EDU tutorials to get insights in creative masters, David started using their lessons to learn more about photography as a craft. Now a retired Soldier with nearly 15 years of formal and informal education in the field, David joined PRO EDU full time bringing with him all the experience in how people learn, grow, and adapt toward craft mastery.”
About Sef McCullough: Sef McCullough is a veteran digital creative artist and high end commercial retoucher, turned educator and software designer. His educational products have sold all over the world and are used by global brands to train the next generation of visual creatives.
About T.J Vytlacil:: TJ Vytlacil comes to PRO EDU from a variety of disciplines, most recently as the product lead at Brigade Society. He is a film photographer with a degree in general film photography from Webster University. He has created and launched multiple companies through out his career in the restaurant hospitality industry, clothing industry and technology industry. His focus will be on merging the education provided by PRO EDU with the tools to make your business successful.
Dates: More info will be released via PRO EDU's email leading up until the November 16th launch, when official pricing and info on all products will be released.
