35 Years In, Now Certified in AI. Here is Why That Combination Matters.

I still remember the heft of a 3/4” videotape. The satisfying clunk of it sliding into a deck, the whir of heads spinning up to speed. That was my world in the early nineties: television production, analogue everything, and a career that felt solid and knowable.

Then digital video arrived and suddenly made all of that feel ancient.

I did not resist it. I learned it. That is what you do when the medium you work in gets rewritten, right? You just figure out the new rules and then get back to work.

The Internet hit next, and that one did not just change my tools; it changed my career entirely. I went from television producer to digital media producer, which required me to actually go back to school. I enrolled at Algonquin College in their Interactive Multimedia program and learned to think about storytelling and communication in a completely new way. I then graduated into a field that had barely existed when I enrolled.

One of my instructors in the program was Irene Hammerich. She hired me after I graduated to work for her training firm, where I got to teach digital video and website design in some of the first accredited programs of their kind. Irene has been a good friend and mentor to me ever since.

Then in the early 2000s, social media arrived and rewrote the rules again. The audience were no longer passively watching at home; they were now smack dab in the middle of the conversation. The skills that mattered shifted yet again, and the strategies that had worked needed rethinking again. Rather than resist the change, I rethought things…again.

Each time the landscape around me changed, the core question was the same: Do I wait for someone else to figure this out, or do I go learn it myself? I have always known my answer.

That is what 35 years as a storyteller and strategist actually looks like from the inside. It’s not just one career; it’s several, stitched together by curiosity, a willingness to be a beginner again, and a stubborn refusal to become obsolete.

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In September of 2025, Irene handed me the surfboard once more. A new wave was coming.

Nearly 30 years after she first changed the direction of my career, she encouraged me to enroll in an intensive AI consultant certification program. I trusted her judgment in 1996, so of course, I trusted it again.

The program was rigorous. This was no weekend badge, but months of deep, structured work covering the full spectrum of what it actually means to help organizations adopt AI thoughtfully. This past weekend, I received certification in three areas: AI Consulting, AI Implementor, and Data Specialist.

Going back to school at this stage of a career is a choice. It takes time you do not really have, energy you have to carve out deliberately, and a willingness to sit with not knowing things for a while. I would make that choice again without hesitation.

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Here is what I want to be clear about: a lot of people are getting AI certifications right now. That credential alone is not the differentiator.

What is harder to find is someone who pairs that technical grounding with 35 years of experience helping mission-driven organizations figure out how to communicate clearly, earn trust, and lead through change. Someone who has watched four major technological transformations reshape how organizations tell their stories and helped people navigate each one.

AI is genuinely powerful, but remember, it does not know your audience. It does not understand what your organization stands for, why the work matters, or how to say the hard thing in a way people can actually hear. It does not know which stakeholder is going to push back, or why, or what language might actually move them.

That is marketing and communications strategy, and storytelling too, that only a human can do. That is the work I have been doing for three and a half decades. My AI certifications mean I can now bring even more technical depth to the conversations I’m having and truly help people in the context of today’s technological landscape. I can help you understand what AI can actually do in your organization, where it genuinely fits, and where the risk of moving too fast outweighs the appeal of moving at all.

That combination, strategic communications experience plus rigorous AI training, is what Jester is built on. It is not common, and I think it matters.

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If you are leading a mission-driven organization and you are trying to figure out where AI actually fits, or how to have an honest internal conversation about readiness, or what to do first without disrupting what is already working, I would love to talk.

Not a pitch. Just a conversation. The kind I have been having for 35 years, but with a few new tools in the kit.

The waves keep coming. I have never minded getting wet.