Marketing manager finds BV more than she thought

Lynn Atkins/The Weekly Vista The new marketing and communications manager for the Bella Vista POA Ashlee Napier can’t wait to show her marketing plan to the board.
Lynn Atkins/The Weekly Vista The new marketing and communications manager for the Bella Vista POA Ashlee Napier can’t wait to show her marketing plan to the board.

Although she didn't know it at the time, every job she's ever had was grooming the new POA Marketing and Communications Manager for her new position. Ashlee Napier started in January and is looking forward to unveiling her marketing plan.

While she was in school at Southern Missouri University, she worked at country clubs as a life guard and in pro shops.

She graduated just as the recession got started. Her family was in the construction business so they helped with a job in that field.

"I understand the construction part (of POA services) and I understand the golf part and the recreation part," she said. When she saw the job advertised, "it felt familiar," she said.

By then she was working in marketing.

After beginning her college career in veterinary medicine, she discovered she liked marketing and had a knack for it.

She worked in Las Vegas for three years, but was happy to return to northwest Arkansas where she grew up.

She was busy marketing products that make firearms safer before coming to the POA.

Growing up in Springdale, all she knew about Bella Vista was that it was a place where old people played golf.

"It's so much more than that," she said. "It's the crown jewel of northwest Arkansas. ...We can't keep something like this secret. We have to share it."

Her first big project will probably be to change the website and make it "more visually appealing." She expects it will be more user friendly -- a site where people will choose to spend more time.

It's a big project, but she'd like to get it completed this spring, or by the end of the year by the latest.

She's worked with a board of directors before, although never one that is as involved as the POA board.

"It's cool," she said about the board. "It shows they care." She expects to harness that caring and use it.

Although Arkansas has changed and become much more transient, she believes she can help bring back some of the attitudes of "Mayberry," and that will draw people in.

"It's not just about old people and golf any more," she said.

General News on 01/28/2015