James G. Myers (B.S., Agricultural Communication, 1983) has been named a 2024 Purdue Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication Distinguished Alumnus.
Myers is partner and chief creative officer for Simon/Myers, a boutique creative agency he co-founded in 2015 that is dedicated to home and building brands and based in Chicago. Myers said his career has been a long and curvy road, leading to a place he never expected.
James G. Myers (B.S., Agricultural Communication, 1983) is partner and chief creative officer for Simon/Myers, a boutique creative agency he co-founded in 2015. Myers grew up on a farm just north of Crawfordsville, Indiana — you might know it as the one with the big round barn. It was likely predestined that he would attend Purdue, Myers said. His father came to love Purdue when he took an agriculture short course in the 1950s. Myers enrolled in Agricultural Communication in 1978 to leverage his love of photography and writing, fully expecting to return to the farm in four to five years. Life had other plans, Myers said.
When he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1983, the ag economy was upside down, Myers said. And with two brothers already back on the family farm, Myers was odd man out. He headed to Florida, where he landed a job as a copy editor at a local daily, The Bradenton Herald. Two years later, he returned to the Lafayette area as a section editor for the Journal and Courier.
“It was then that Purdue changed my trajectory forever,” Myers said.
He had stayed in touch with his former advisor in the College of Agriculture, Jim Oliver. Luck would have it that in 1986, Oliver received an inquiry from a Chicago-area agricultural advertising agency, Rhea + Kaiser. They were seeking a writer who knew ag, and Oliver reported that “I have your man, and he’s right here in town.”
That connection led to a 27-year career at R+K, where Myers helped build the agency to a 150-person national powerhouse in agricultural marketing, serving Case IH, Bayer CropScience, Pfizer Animal Health, and FS Growmark among many others.
In 2014, Myers said he was able to write his most rewarding chapter. He left R+K and joined forces with a longtime friend to help him launch Simon/Myers. The agency debuted in January 2015 with five employees and has climbed to more than 20. The agency punches above its weight class, Myers said, landing work with national brands like Delta Faucet, LG, Hammermill, and TimberTech.
“It has been the privilege of a lifetime to create value in the marketplace while providing good careers to so many,” Myers said.
More than his career, Myers said his family and faith define him and reward him endlessly.
“I’ve been fortunate to pull a few incredible Boilermakers along in my wake: my brother-in-law Derek Delp, who was sold the moment I showed him the campus pool hall, and my daughters, Jordan and Abby, who both say there was nowhere else they wanted to go but here,” Myers said. “My son, Zach, is a proud Miami of Ohio alumni. And my wife, Marci, has given this wild, demanding advertising career more time, grace, and mood-enhancing milk shakes than deserved.”
The other 2024 ASEC Distinguished Alumni are Bryan Hains and Duane Huge.
The awards presentation will be 2 p.m. Friday, October 18, in Creighton Hall of Animal Sciences, room 1042. All are welcome to attend the ceremony and the reception that follows.
