A Bit About Jane
JA ExitZero founder Jane M. Applegate has over 30 years experience consulting in brand management, public relations, marketing, development, event production services.
ExitZero is founded on a great work ethic, a vast knowledge-base and understanding of interests impacting both the public and private sector. Jane draws from multiple decades of strategic planning skills and blends them with her love and passion for creativity.
Strategic Intention Matters. This mixture of strategic and creative that Jane develops for you has the EDGE your vision needs to create the desired outcomes and profitability you desire for your event.
With a degree in Criminal Justice and nearly another in Psychology, Jane’s calling is to serve. Her marketing and communications career actually began in sales.
This led to work as an advertising agency account executive where she served the financial, higher education, and healthcare sectors, then later moved into video communication sales and production. It was in these roles Jane found her love for all things marketing, communications, branding and event production.
Through forensic deep dives of client problems and goals, Jane has become an Agent of Change by providing solutions that work.
Thinking about your first, or your next event? Let Jane and her team of experts at ExitZero help you achieve success. They will work with you to develop tools and events that help tell your story in the best way possible, and to share that experience with the people that matter most.
Jane is always the creative in a crowd of suits, and always the suit when in a crowd of creatives.
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.
– Bruce Barton
“Jane It Forward”
“My goal is to not only utilize, but to also teach about proven and emerging tools and techniques for creating events that grow.”
Jane’s Innovations
Her core philosophy is that words are important but it’s the intention that matters.
This belief and way of doing business inspired her to innovate and develop Applegate’s EDGE.
Whether as a business consultant, employee, or volunteer, Jane continually builds on her knowledge base and skill set to consistently create projects, programs and events that provide effective and profitable solutions.
She’s produced black-tie affairs, awards galas, community events, job fairs, and trade show experiences among other projects. She’s also created the largest art event of its kind in the nation, and a Maker Faire to serve the Maker Community.
FORT WAYNE REGIONAL MAKER FAIRE
Jane is a passionate gardener. Like mentoring, it’s always been one of her greatest joys to plant seeds and to watch them grow. She knows the importance of “stopping to smell the roses.”
Jane is a graduate of the FBI Citizens Academy having been nominated by Indiana State Senator Elizabeth Brown. In this role, she maintains her connection with her education and serves as a community advocate and voice of our nation’s highest law enforcement arm.
Named after Jane’s father, Billy is new to Jane’s family and is the love of her life. Her name should have been Annie as she’s just like a little rag doll. Either way, expect to see many blog posts about this endless bundle of energy, who looks and acts very much like her new mom.
“I’m a proud co-founder of TekVenture, a member-based public art and technology lab.
Responsible for outreach, communications, development, and other roles, I curated a group of volunteers, and we created a community event as a way to create awareness and to generate exposure and revenue for the fledgling organization.
The Fort Wayne Regional Maker Faire, The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth, was born after our team attended the inaugural Detroit Maker Faire, whose leadership would later mentor the group.
The Fort Wayne Faire was the 6th or so to come online; was one of the first to be created and managed outside the purview of MAKE and O’Reilly Media, and was ultimately used to help build the global franchise of which there are now 160 Faires across the world.
In order to produce the show, I had to interview with the founder of the entire enterprise, Dale Dougherty (credited with the phrase/term Web 2.0), who is recognized as a leader in the Global Maker Movement.
In our first year, we had over 2,000 participants, drawn from 8 states and 60+ zip codes. I was disappointed until I remembered most of the public didn’t know what the term Maker meant, much less anything about TekVenture, an organization that didn’t even have a home. In the end, the event was so successful, TekVenture was able to secure a permanent home and the event ended to focus on providing services to members.”
