Hayley Martinez - Director of Marketing & Communications, Visit Fresno County
Hayley Martinez started in marketing while still in school, supervising telemarketers and coordinating events for Fresno State’s student housing, then running social media as a reporter and digital editor for The Collegian. She interned in marketing and development at the Craig School of Business and worked as a cashier at Target in Hanford along the way. ABC30 hired her as a digital producer in 2018, and she spent nearly four years leading the station’s social strategy with real-time analytics. Visit Fresno County brought her on as marketing and communications manager in 2022 and promoted her to director in January 2024. She now leads the strategy behind making Fresno and Clovis stand out as a destination, using data to drive every ad-buying decision.
Mariah Walton - VP Marketing, Noble Credit Union
Mariah Walton joined Noble Credit Union in 2022 as a business development officer, then took over its business and strategic partnership division. After nine months directing fund development at Valley Children’s Healthcare, she returned to Noble in 2024 to manage strategic partnerships and formed the Noble Credit Union Foundation. She became vice president of marketing in May 2025, leading brand and growth for a $1.5 billion institution serving more than 123,000 members across the Central Valley, with a $2.2 million budget. She has unified the brand, guided members through a major technology conversion, opened a new flagship branch, and partnered with the Bulldog Foundation on full-ride scholarships. She says working as an entrepreneur taught her to think like an owner. She was a 2026 CU Times Luminaries finalist.
Gabriela Swartwood - VP Marketing & Communications, WestCare
Gabriela Swartwood has spent more than twenty years in the nonprofit sector. She led communications, marketing, media relations, and fundraising outreach at Poverello House in Fresno, working with its board, donors, and volunteer guild. WestCare hired her as director of marketing in 2015, and alongside marketing and public relations she oversaw the organization’s procurement operations. She became vice president of marketing and communications in 2021. She now leads brand, communications, and creative across WestCare’s national and international network, working with executive leadership and regional teams to make sure the organization’s programs get the visibility they deserve. She is bilingual in English and Spanish, and describes her work as making sure the stories worth telling are heard.
Larry Blagg - SVP Marketing, California Raisin Marketing Board
Larry Blagg founded two companies in Japan. He started Ore-Ida Foods Japan for Heinz, then co-founded Market Makers, a food marketing and promotion firm in Boise and Tokyo, and ran it for sixteen years with clients including Tyson, Newman’s Own, and California Raisins. He wrote two books for the US Agricultural Trade Office on selling into Japan’s foodservice and food manufacturing markets, served as a governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and was president of the Tokyo American Club. His career began in sales and management at Procter & Gamble, Heinz, and Shell Chemical. The California Raisin Marketing Board named him senior vice president of marketing in 2005, and he has now promoted the Fresno-centered industry for more than twenty years, with a particular focus on international markets.
Emily Valdez - Marketing Director, Fresno Chaffee Zoo
Emily Valdez interned in marketing for Fresno State Athletics and in public relations for the Girl Scouts of Central California South, while working as a key holder at Lane Bryant. The Girl Scouts hired her full-time, first in troop support and then as marketing and communication coordinator, running the council’s website, social channels, press materials, and donor newsletter. Fresno Chaffee Zoo hired her as a communications specialist in 2021. Within a year she was interim marketing supervisor, then senior marketing manager, and in January 2025 she became marketing director. She now leads marketing, communications, and design for one of the region’s most visited attractions. She calls herself both the biggest fan and the harshest critic of the organizations she serves.
Jonathan Bravo - Director, Marketing & Communications, Fresno Grizzlies
Jonathan Bravo played in the Fresno State Bulldog Marching Band and worked the court as the hype man at men’s basketball games. As a marketing intern for Fresno State Athletics he ran promotions and game day presentation for several sports and grew the student section’s Instagram following 98%. The Fresno Grizzlies hired him as marketing manager in 2020, when the season was canceled, and he kept fans engaged with 6 million social impressions and televised rebroadcasts of classic games. He became director of marketing and communications in 2021. He now runs social, content, promotions, game day production, paid media, and media relations, serves as the club’s spokesperson, and sits on Diamond Baseball Holdings’ marketing advisory committee. His Tequila Fest event won a Gold Bobblehead Award in 2023.
Cris Monahan-Bremer - Marketing Director, Fresno City College
Cris Monahan-Bremer spent fifteen and a half years as manager of public relations at Valley Children’s Hospital before joining Fresno City College in 2002. She has now led marketing at the college for more than 24 years, covering advertising, events, social media, web content, and the design and branding work behind them. With more than 35 years in public relations and marketing, all of it in Fresno, she is one of the longest-serving marketing leaders in California’s community college system. She holds a journalism degree from Fresno State.
Richele Kleiser - VP Marketing & Communications, California Health Sciences University
Richele Kleiser spent eighteen years at Gottschalks, the Fresno department store chain. She ran its private label credit card program and customer service for thirteen years, then direct marketing and loyalty, and finally all of its advertising and marketing as marketing director. Granville Homes hired her as marketing manager in 2009, overseeing marketing across its single-family, multifamily, and nonprofit divisions. California Health Sciences University named her vice president of marketing and communications in June 2013, and she has spent more than thirteen years there. Her remit has grown well beyond marketing to include public and media relations, branding, development, alumni relations, and strategic planning for the university in Clovis.
Kevin Dillon - Co-Founder, CMO & Chief Sales Officer, ERI
Kevin Dillon co-founded ERI in 2005 and has helped build it into a national electronics recycling, IT asset disposition, and hardware destruction company with eight certified locations and capacity to process more than a billion pounds of electronic waste a year. As chief marketing officer and chief sales officer he oversees corporate sales, marketing, acquisitions, and business development, and speaks around the world on the state of the industry. Before ERI he was vice president of sales at FinancialAid.com, growing the student loan company’s sales past $2 billion a year. His career started as a retail associate at Costco, a sales and marketing analyst at Bank of America, a pharmaceutical sales representative for Johnson & Johnson in the Central Valley, and a project manager at SBC.
Jeff Bray - CMO, Seven Generations Sports & Entertainment
Jeff Bray spent more than three years running Wilks Broadcasting’s Fresno radio stations as vice president and market manager, then moved into casino marketing at The Toland Group. Aramark hired him as director of sales and marketing for its Yosemite operations, a job he held for nearly five years inside the national park. After a year in business development at Mealthy, he turned to the Valley’s agriculture, selling for Murguia Fruit and Poindexter Nut Company, and he now also runs his own commodities brokerage focused on the nut industry. Seven Generations Sports & Entertainment named him chief marketing officer in November 2025. Nearly three decades across radio, television, hospitality, and advertising sit behind the role.
Valley Built
Fresno’s marketing bench is unusually local. Four careers began at Fresno State. Two have run for more than twenty years at a single Fresno institution, and another spent eighteen at the city’s own department store. Even the outliers came back to the Valley’s core industries, whether raisins, nuts, or the parks and tourism that bring visitors through. That gives these marketers something hard to hire in from elsewhere: a working knowledge of the people they are trying to reach, built over decades of living alongside them.