The story of Palmer Event Solutions began with Gail in 2016. By 2018, it was becoming a story with more people in it – people who brought their own strengths, ideas and personalities to the work.

“At the heart of Palmer Event Solutions is our mission: We help good people plan great events,” Gail recalls. “It might not have been written down quite so succinctly at that point, but it was already at the core of what I was doing. And there were more good people I could help if I could expand beyond myself.”

Doing that meant recognizing the limits of working alone. Gail wanted to keep saying yes without burning herself out or compromising the care she gave existing clients. She also wanted a consistent team beside her on event day, sharing the responsibility of bringing people together.

Conversations and relationships helped open those doors. A chat with Matt Radicelli, then owner of Rock The House, led to Joelle joining part-time. Networking through ILEA Cleveland brought Sabrina into the business. Work with business coach Rick Phelps of Action Coach helped Gail prepare to hire Erron, PES’s first full-time employee. Heather became part of the growing team through a combination of timing, chance and Gail’s clearer understanding of what the business needed.

The team gave Gail thought partners, shared responsibility and room to grow into a role she discovered she enjoyed.

“Without bringing people on, I think I would have stayed happy as a solo event planner. Bringing people on meant I had to become more. I had to become a business owner, and I soon discovered that I liked that role, too.”

Now she wanted people outside the business to see what was taking shape inside.

“I was trying to figure out how to show people that Palmer Event Solutions was more than Gail Palmer being a solo event planner with a company name.”

Gail liked handwritten thank-you cards and had been considering something tangible, perhaps a postcard, that could introduce her and the team. Then a chance conversation at a basketball game gave that idea a new direction. She met Denise Reynolds, owner of Outside the Lines Creative Group, whose company created animations, including whiteboard videos. Gail could suddenly picture PES’s philosophy and approach coming to life through characters based on her own teammates.

“The artist selected was Jennifer Campbell, a Nationally-syndicated cartoonist living in Chagrin Falls, and I really liked her work,” Gail says. “The approach felt right to me. I like to have fun, and cartoons felt like a good way to introduce the people behind PES while expressing that personality.”

Those characters became part of the whiteboard video explaining what we do. They also began a tradition: as new teammates joined, new cartoons could join them. Today, each character captures something recognizable about the person behind it. Even Gail’s blue Jeep Wrangler, Joy, eventually joined the cast as our “Transportation Supervisor.”

The artwork appears alongside team photos on our website, in social posts and throughout our materials. What began as a way to introduce a growing team has become a familiar part of how people get to know us.

“One of our core values is ‘we are fun to work with,’” Gail says. “This work is too hard to do without being fun, and the cartoons help people see that part of us before we’ve even met.”