About Adam Slye

As the only permanent and comprehensive record of the school year, the printed yearbook has incredible value, with both immediate and lasting importance to your entire school community. Since 2003 I've been a sales representative for Herff Jones Yearbooks, providing schools in the greater Sacramento area with the guidance and tools to create their best yearbooks ever.

I have the good fortune to work with my father, Ray Slye. While I suppose it was inevitable that I'd eventually go into the "family business," I took a roundabout path to get here. All of those former experiences have come in pretty handy at my current position. 

You could say that ink runs in my blood as both my parents were on their yearbook staff (where dad still maintains he first met my mother in the yearbook darkroom!) and I grew up in a yearbook household. After college and their two-year stint in The Peace Corps, living in Ghana, West Africa, Ray taught English and advised the student newspaper and yearbook at two high schools before becoming a sales representative for Herff Jones more than two decades ago. Some of my earliest memories are hanging out in the publications room. The joke was that if I could find any of the yearbook materials in his classroom before the students on staff, they'd get an F! I also vividly remember "deadline Saturdays" once he joined Herff Jones. Students and advisers dropped off their pages at our doorstep and then the whole family frantically double-checked the copy, made sure all the photos were there and that everything was labeled correctly before rushing to send everything off in time. 

Though I was editor of the yearbook in middle school, my older brother was the one who worked on yearbook in high school. My junior and senior years I participated in the ROP program. My first job was at a company that produced instructional videos for magicians and distributed them to magic shops all over the world. As the company evolved and I followed one of the partners who decided to start his own wholesale business, I eventually became a one-man Marketing & Advertising "department" where I handled the product photography, copywriting, web production, print advertising and graphic design. It was quite an experience and the classic start-up scenario, working on folding tables for the first few years in a warehouse space without the luxury of air conditioning during Sacramento summers as part of a small, but very passionate team of people. With a lot of hard work, it quickly grew to a multi-million dollar international company. After five years, I decided it was time to strike out on my own. I started On the Slye Photography, specializing in wedding photojournalism and portraits. I absolutely loved being a part of a once-in-a-lifetime event every weekend, and still shoot the occasional wedding for friends, but after a couple years I knew it was time for another change. This was right around the time that desktop publishing was really gaining traction with schools and their yearbook production went "all-digital." What started out as "consulting" with the yearbook staffs who worked with my father on their initial set-up and training quickly became a full-time job as his Associate Sales Representative. Three years ago, the roles swapped and I became the primary representative with Ray becoming the associate, which allows him a little more time to focus on being the greatest Grandpa around.

As a representative for Herff Jones, I pull from all my different experiences for the wide variety of things I do every day. Whether it's a classroom presentation, working out a budget plan with the editors and adviser, troubleshooting tech issues, striving to optimize my business, creating an iPhone app for myself and fellow reps (and even performing the occasional card trick), I really couldn't find a better way to pull all of my geekiness into one job.

There's no doubt, working with students is the most rewarding part of my job. The work that some of these young designers, writers, photographers and journalists create is simply amazing. It's fun to watch many of them go on to pursue fields related to graphic design or journalism and see where life takes them. I'm grateful for a limited geographic territory where I can assist our customers with every phase of the production process.

There's lots of talk about the "death of yearbooks" lately, citing social networks and other digital services. I'm an avid user of the latest and greatest services and gadgets, but even in today's digital world with one-click sharing of photos and feelings, I firmly believe in both the immediate and lasting value of a permanent, printed record of the high school experience created by a dedicated staff of students. Someone much smarter than me said recently there are three skills our students need in order to succeed in the modern world. They need to be: fluent in technology, excellent in communicating and capable problem-solvers. There's no better class on any campus at teaching these key areas than yearbook. The educational experience is like no other and the printed book is one piece of technology guaranteed to work in 20 years! (Just think of those poor folks with VHS yearbooks.)

I'm NorCal born and raised. I live in Citrus Heights in a beautiful Eichler home with my even more beautiful wife, Jennifer, her 12-year-old son, Andrew and our sweet little newborn, Lila. I present at national journalism conventions and area workshops in addition to co-directing the Yearbooks CA summer camp. I'm a Member of the Journalism Education Association (JEA), the Northern California chapter of JEA (JEANC) and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC).