It’s no surprise David Blatner, president of CreativePro Network, calls Avatar, “THE EasyCatalog Experts”.
Avatar has been providing EasyCatalog training, mentoring, and development services as well as data and workflow consulting for more than 20 years.
Meet Our Team
Coletta Perry
CEO/Senior Solutions Designer
Coletta and her team have helped hundreds of companies adopt affordable data-driven automated catalog workflows. Her focus on catalog production automation began in the early 1990s, after successfully helming her own typography company for more than a decade. Coletta worked with the Black Box international catalog production team to develop her first labor-saving applets.
These custom applets automated index creation, language swapping, and catalog design morphing. These applets greatly sped up the creation of Black Box’s international catalogs that were being published in 13 languages. Some of the applets are still being used today.
She and the Avatar team have taken their creativity and passion for providing efficient time-saving solutions to our customer’s stickiest challenges.
Coletta wears other hats in her local municipality, too. After serving on Crafton, PA Borough council for six years, she was elected mayor in 2021. Don’t even get her started on municipal budgeting, or clean water issues and storm water separation projects!
When not working on solutions for Avatar’s clients or attending Council meetings, Coletta can either be found in the kitchen pursuing her love of the culinary arts or out biking, camera on board, looking to capture the interesting and unusual.
You can find some of her favorites in her Flickr photo stream…
Nikki Fehrmann
Production Manager
These days Nikki is heading up our biggest projects and making sure we’re all on task and on-time.
Nikki’s prior experience has been on the hardware side along with help desk assistance, and 15 years of customer relations — 5 years of which were in management. With Avatar, she uses that skill set to help keep the big projects organized, keeping track of every nuance and client request within that project. Lately Nikki has stretched even further, learning about data structures, catalog production and design, and EasyCatalog development. We think we can see what’s on her horizon as she expands her Avatar role.
Always keeping busy, Nikki’s hobbies include soccer, astrology, history, treasure hunting, genetic genealogy, and logic puzzles.
Possessing an inquisitive mind, she is always eager to learn as much as she can about everything! And to add to her already full plate, Nikki’s now learning to read, write, and speak Arabic, which will be her third language, after Spanish.
We try to remind her to stop and smell the roses, but with an energy and passion such as hers, Nikki’s bound to plant, grow, smell, pick, and design the rose bouquet all herself!
Jeremy Howard
Solutions Developer
Jeremy is always pushing the envelope — looking for new and better ways to automate projects. And he has great client rapport.
From a very young age, Jeremy had a love of drawing and illustration. It was this love of art that led him to pursue a career in graphic design, where he attended school in Pittsburgh, Pa. His first job in the industry was as a production designer and prepress tech, and he quickly realized he had a drive for automation, scripting, and streamlining processes. With that passion for learning and the ability to grasp the technical challenges of different software and processes, Jeremy parlayed these skills into his growing position with Avatar.
He and his wife are active members of his son’s Boy Scout den and participate in all sorts of Scout activities. During the warmer months, they can be found fishing, camping, hiking, or swimming as a family.
Jeremy’s eagerness to take on new challenges makes him the perfect fit for the Avatar team. You will now find him busy working on all sorts of projects, talking with clients, and helping to troubleshoot some of the peskiest of problems our clients face. Is there a Boy Scout badge for that?
Noel Fehrmann
Business Manager/eLearning Administrator
Here at Avatar, Noel is the one who makes sure that all the checks and balances are in place so that the rest of the Avatar team can concentrate on the numerous projects going on at any time. Her keen eye for detail keeps us on all track and is the foundation for making sure Avatar is there to serve our clients. In addition to her primary role, Noel oversees the EasyCatalog eLearning platform.
Noel is one of those rare beings who not only has a mind for business and numbers but also sports a very creative and generous mind.
Noel’s love of art, eye for photography, and passion for cooking and baking are some of her extra skills that really enable her creativity to shine through. Her Middle Eastern and French background makes for a very diverse palate, especially when it comes to her cooking. She’s spent some of her spare time working with a local caterer to help create wonderful and delicious dishes, and now her cupcake-baking business is supplying some of the tastiest and most beautiful treats.
When not crunching numbers for Avatar, Noel can be found shopping for fresh produce for her next culinary creation or attending one of the many local art galleries in Pittsburgh.
Joe Mathia
Senior Applications Developer, Emeritus
After many years of service to our clients, Joe is taking a step back from day-to-day development. He’s still around for special assignments and to ensure we are well equipped to continue to support his past projects and clients.
Over the years he has personally been responsible for implementing automated page-building solutions for InDesign and Quark for close to 1,000 companies in that time. His experience in this arena is simply unparalleled.
Joe is a rare but true renaissance man. He has an engineering and music background and still is a highly sought-after piano teacher. All that practice coupled with his degree in piano pedagogy (the science of education) makes him a patient and brilliant teacher. We credit Joe for the success of our online webinar-style training programs and live support sessions.
Beyond publishing solutions, he is the go-to guy for any mechanical question or practical repair advice. He’s also a great cook! All this knowledge translates into an amazing ability to understand clients’ businesses and their products and services which, in turn, influences his solutions and ensures that they are spot on.
Kevin J. Dadey
Process Specialist
Kevin Dadey brings a plethora of experience to our team. His background in graphic design, corporate presentations, and eLearning provides the foundation of expertise he has in project management, creative direction, and communications.
Before stepping into the kitchen at Avatar DPS, Kevin was with NuRelm (a software integration development services company) where he led each project phase — proposal, scope of work, development schedules, task assignments, and client communications. Projects ranged from simple software plug-in updates to complete, from the ground up, website development undertakings, including complex member management systems, responsive design considerations, and CMS integration.
Prior to that, Kevin worked with VLN Partners, a Pittsburgh-based cyber school services company dedicated to bringing quality online education to public school districts.
There he founded the online course production department, instituting consistent, sustainable, and quality-driven course production practices. He then turned his attention to client management, establishing the Creative Services department (Account Management). And just so you don’t think Kevin is all work and no play, he’s been playing tennis well before the widespread adoption of reasonable-length tennis shorts. His biking shorts also reflect an appropriate level of modesty, by the way. On summer weekends, you might find him at Bandel Airport in Eighty Four, Pa, where he pursues his sailplane piloting license, much to the astonishment and concern of his wife, Karen, who watches his instructional flights from the safety and comfort of Mother Earth.
Lucky for us he sailed into our sights!