team
The Marketing Projects, Inc. team is made up of high-spirited writers, editors, designers and researchers, all with decades of experience in the education market. Our staff produces rich, curated content in which to wrap your messages, for the audiences you want to reach. We simultaneously provide access to educators nationwide to test messages, evaluate products and pursue new marketing directions.
Marilyn Schutz is founder, president and publisher of Marketing Projects, Inc. and Big Deal Media, with a 35+ year track record in educational publishing and marketing. Prior to establishing the company in 1993, Marilyn was co-founder and principal of a New York-based educational consulting organization, vice president of sales for Lifetime Learning Systems and vice president of marketing for Instructor Publications, Inc.
Marilyn holds a Masters in Communications from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and a B.A. from Lake Erie College. She began her career on the editorial staff of Instructor magazine. During her career, Marilyn has worked with hundreds of companies in the education market including technology companies, textbook publishers, supplemental materials publishers, equipment manufacturers and service providers, for which she has developed award-winning materials and content-driven websites. In 1993 she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Lake Erie College.
She is a contributing author to The Experts’ Guide to K–12 Marketing and is a member of the preK-12 Learning Group of the American Association of Publishers, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the Software and Information Industry Association. She is also a Trustee of the District 211 Foundation in Illinois as well as a board member and co-VP of development for the ARCS Foundation, Inc., Illinois chapter.
Sandra Mangurian is Chief Curator and Curriculum Specialist. In this capacity, she oversees the planning and development of MPI school outreach programs and all of Big Deal Media’s publications for tech-savvy educators, teachers of English learners, special needs professionals and others involved in teaching with technology.
For more than 35 years Sandra has been an executive in the educational publishing arena. Sandra has held a variety of high-level leadership positions, including Director of Urban Education; Vice President, Research and Instruction; Vice President, Editor in Chief; and US Publishing Director, Global Publishing. Her expertise is in conceptualizing and developing large-scale programs in reading/language arts, prekindergarten through grade 12, including curricula for dyslexics and English learners.
In the recent past, Sandra’s curriculum work also includes planning and directing the content development of two online professional courses for elementary classroom teachers and authoring a reading/language arts textbook for middle school English learners. Sandra is an engaged participant in activities sponsored by Urban Gateways and Chicago Literacy and is an active member of ASCD, IRA, NCTE, NCSS, TESOL and ARCS Illinois.
Katie Cooper is the Managing Editor for the GetEdFunding grant database. She is responsible for maintaining accurate information in the database and manages a team of researchers, writers, and editors to catalog to over 6,000 grants. In addition, she is the Office Manager of Marketing Projects Inc. where she optimizes company operations and provides general marketing support for Big Deal Media. Katie holds a MS in Marketing Communications from Roosevelt University and a BA of Health Administration from the University of Illinois.
Laura Sandoval is Web Manager for Marketing Projects, Inc. and Big Deal Media. She is responsible for all data reporting and CRM systems, survey development, and all technology-related issues. Laura has more than 20 years of experience in web and database development across a range of industries. She is a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a BS in Sociology.