Advice Company

Prior to forming Advice Company in 1991, Gerry was Chief Brokerage Officer of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and President & CEO of MetLife Marketing Corporation. During his 20-year plus career at MetLife he created and headed two multi-billion dollar insurance ventures and also served as MetLife's Vice President for Corporate Planning and Development, head of its Investment and Fiduciary Services unit, an officer of its property / casualty and reinsurance companies, a member of the Board of Directors of numerous subsidiaries, and as an Assistant General Counsel. He began his career as a trial lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission after serving as a first lieutenant with the Army Security Agency and several years of law practice with a top rated New York law firm.

Gerry graduated with honors from the College of William and Mary and from Columbia Law School, completed the Stanford Business School's Executive Program and the coursework for a Master of Liberal Arts at Stanford University. He is a member of the bars of California, New York, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He has chaired the Insurance Committee of the American Bar Association's Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section, the Group Insurance Programs Committee of the State Bar of California and the New York City Bar Association's Administrative Law Committee, and held many other Bar leadership positions in such fields as Government Ethics, Professional Responsibility, Government Regulation, and Securities Law. He has spoken extensively on legal and business topics throughout the United States, England and Canada, has testified as an expert before committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives and served as an expert for the US Department of Justice, the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has been President of the Stanford Business School Alumni Association's San Francisco Chapter, a member of the Dean's Advisory Board of the University of San Francisco's School of Business and Management, and a member of the Board of Directors and Advisory Council of Marin Theatre Company.

Michael Shanahan joined Advice Company in 2000 as its Chief Technology Officer and was promoted to Senior Vice President in 2003 and became Chief Operating Officer that same year. He is primarily responsible for all aspects of the state of the art technology used for the Company's websites and new technology initiatives. Prior to joining Advice Company he had been a college instructor, and Director of Internet Development, and Vice-President of Curriculum Development of a leading Internet-based medical education firm. He is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Rochester, and also studied at Albany Medical College, Stanford University and MIT (Sloan School of Management).

John Plessas joined the Company in 2011 and leads its strategic and tactical development for identifying new market opportunities in the attorney and expert marketing space in addition to oversight of the sales and customer engagement teams. Mr. Plessas most recently served as VP for Nolo's lawyer division where he effectively managed their online sales and marketing operation. Prior to his work with Nolo, he was the Director of Sales at Clear Channel based in San Francisco. John earned his BS, Marketing degree from Golden Gate University.

Mary Martin joined Advice Company in 1997 as Executive Editor and head of Staff Operations. She is responsible for developing, sourcing and editing legal content for the Company's legally oriented websites. In addition to managing content flow and outside authors, she is responsible for internal staff operations. Prior to joining Advice Company she had a 29-year career as executive editor, manager of practice systems software development, and a corporate officer at legal publisher Commerce Clearing House. She earned a BA from Dominican College.

Brian Brown joined Advice Company in 1996, and has played numerous roles, from sales, marketing programs, administration and strategic alliances and working with the Company's former affiliate DoItYourself.com Incorporated. Prior to joining Advice Company he worked for the law firm of Day, Berry & Howard in Connecticut as a project manager. Brown also has done production work for ESPN International and was a professional soccer player with the Cape Cod Crusaders. He earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania.

Brandon holds a degree in geology and environmental engineering from Lehigh University and after work with the Army Corps of Engineers joined Advice Company in 1999 in sales and marketing and became a proficient technical executive before moving to Washington, DC in 2002, to become the search engine optimization specialist for a leading hotel marketing firm. He rejoined Advice Company as a consultant in 2005.

Patricia is a seasoned legal editor and published author with nearly 20 years of experience making the law accessible to consumers. Patricia started in legal publishing with Nolo Press as an editor, working on a wide variety of books, from fighting traffic tickets to tenants' rights to living wills. She has co-authored several books on trademarks, domain names and California law. In addition to legal publishing, Patricia served as principal attorney for Creative Media Law Group, a partnership specializing in intellectual property matters for technology startups. She came to Advice Company in 2005 and has served as lead writer/editor, SEO and analytics associate, and content manager. She is a graduate of UCLA and holds a JD from University of California Hastings College of the Law.

Forrest (Woody) Phillips joined the Company in 2005. A 30-year veteran of the computer industry Woody has been involved in website and Internet application programming since 1997. He has had extensive hardware, software and management experience in high-technology companies and appears as inventor on six patents for computing hardware.

Woody was a Senior Engineer at both Digital Equipment Corporation and Honeywell Information Systems in Massachusetts, the Senior Engineer for Web Design and Hosting at the video marketing firm Symbolic Productions, Vice President for Developer Relations at Sirius Publishing and Vice President for Quality at a printed circuit board manufacturer acquired by Gould.

Woody earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Management from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA, after receiving an Associate degree in Business Administration from Fisher Junior College in Boston. Woody did graduate engineering work at Northeastern University and, more recently, marketing at Stanford.

A proud veteran of the United States Air Force, Woody graduated from the USAF's School of Applied Aerospace Sciences in Biloxi, MS. In addition to his interest in computers and technology, Woody is an avid motorcyclist, and regularly participates in motorcycle escorts for veteran's homecomings as a member of the Patriot Guard Riders. He is also an amateur photographer and member of the San Francisco Amateur Astronomy Association.