Rollins College. Class of 2010.
B.A. in Critical Media and Cultural Studies. And Rollins Relief, the student group that took him back to New Orleans with a hammer.
The challenge
Adrian’s family has lived in New Orleans for generations. Months after Katrina, his grandparents’ house was practically destroyed, and whole neighborhoods sat dark and empty. Still in high school, he gave talks at Manhattan schools and collected donations. At Rollins, he wanted to do more.
Swipe to see how ›
01 · The first trip
In January 2007 he went with Rollins Relief to rebuild homes. Few of the students had ever been to the city. By the end of the week, all of them had something to say about what they saw.
02 · A course
With Professor Joseph Siry, the trip became a for-credit winter course, Recovery and Regeneration: Experience Restoring New Orleans.
03 · Funding
He wrote the grant proposals to fund the trips and keep the program running.
04 · Scale
More than 200 Rollins students, faculty and staff went to New Orleans with Rollins Relief after Katrina.
05 · Built to last
He wrote the planning checklist and handbook so the next student leaders could keep the trips going after he graduated.
Applying AI to marketing strategy, creative and analytics.
2026Brand strategy, from positioning to the story a company tells.
CertificationWhere it started.
Adrian made documentaries before he made marketing. The habit stuck: listen first, then tell the story that’s really there.
This Is My Rollins College T‑ShirtDocumentary short. 2007. 13 minutes.
Four Rollins students traced the products sold in their campus bookstore and found that almost every brand relied on sweatshop labor. Adrian directed and shot the film with Rachel Albergo, Margaret DeWees and Whitney Wallingford.
It screened in the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner and at the 2008 Global Peace Film Festival. Years later, the same instinct produced the two films that launched his marketing career at Smartling.