An Interview By: Will Rabinow

This month’s Employee Spotlight is Myron Mariano. Myron is Stokes’ web design and development lead. Did you know he speaks 7 languages? To learn more, check out our interview with him below.

WR: Thank you, Myron, for joining me today. To start, could you tell us a little about your background and how long you have been with Stokes Creative Group?

MM: I’m a New Jersey boy with Filipino origins. I started working for Stokes in June of 2018.

WR: Can you tell us about your role here at Stokes?

MM: As web design and development lead, I’m the guy responsible for the direction of the websites that Stokes creates for its clients. In my three years, I’ve gutted websites that look like they were made in 2008 (some of them were!), I have cleansed websites that have been infested with viruses, and I have built websites that showcase the latest and greatest in digital design.

I’m also responsible for maintaining the websites. This can be something as simple as uploading a new document or as complex as programming a new section on the website.

WR: How did you get involved and interested in web design?

MM: I don’t know when exactly I got into web design, but I distinctly remember the sense of pride that came over me when I published my first website: A three-page review of the video game “Marvel vs. Capcom 2.”

I was also into playing around with my MySpace profile back when it was the thing that every cool—or maybe nerdy?—kid did. (It’s not web design per se, but I was definitely creating and tweaking existing HTML code.)

WR: I think a lot of us had a similar experience with MySpace. What do you like to do in your free time outside of work?

MM: Whenever I’m not developing websites, I indulge in my two other hobbies: travel and foreign languages.

Travel is something that’s really important to me; I love immersing myself in new cultures, partaking of a country’s gastronomy, and generally, a change of scenery. Since I started traveling by myself nine years ago, I’ve been to 24 countries. Hopefully I can add a bunch more next year as travel comes back.

One particular activity I enjoy doing whenever I travel is visiting local wineries and breweries. I always find it a highlight of the trip.

I dabble in fashion styling and photography in my free time as well.

WR: I have heard that you speak a plethora of languages. How many different languages do you speak?

MM: As someone who was raised bilingual, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to become a functional polyglot. Besides English and Filipino, I also speak French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and German. I’ve made plans to take a beginner’s course in Russian next year. We’ll see where that takes me.

WR: Thank you very much Myron for taking the time to tell us about yourself!

MM: Sure!

I hope you enjoyed this December edition of the Stokes Spotlight. I’ll be back again next month with another interview of one of our talented team members. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about our web design and development services, please give us a call at 609-859-8400 today!