Mark Butler, who spent nearly 18 years with HIP Advertising before the agency closed at the end of 2019, is now the marketing and creative director for Paszkiewicz Court Reporting & Records Retrieval, one of HIP’s previous clients.

Ironically, Butler said he had never met Sarah Paszkiewicz during her time as a client of HIP. “She’d come into the office a couple times a year for a brochure or sales flyer, but I was never the person who would work with her,” he explained. “When Myra (Hoffman) decided to retire and alerted clients, Sarah just happened to come by the office soon after.”

Paskiewicz founded her business in 2013, which is headquartered in Glen Carbon but now has six additional locations nationwide. Her husband, Derek, worked in Decatur for many years before joining the business as well, and the couple chose to live in Chatham as a halfway point between their respective jobs.

By the time Paskiewicz learned of HIP’s plans to close, some of the staff had already committed to other employment. However, she hired Butler and graphic designer Ellen Marten to serve as an internal marketing department for her growing company.

“The timing happened to be right,” said Butler. “The firm didn’t have any formal marketing function and she had started to look around.”

Butler and Marten have now moved into an office on the first floor of 3161 W. White Oaks Dr., complete with furniture that Paskiewicz purchased from the former HIP office.

Butler said he was “flabbergasted” when he visited the Glen Carbon headquarters for the first time last week and realized there were 70 people working out of that location alone. “Their equipment is as sophisticated as anything we worked with at HIP to shoot TV commercials,” Butler said, noting that the company provides videography for depositions and trial recording in addition to court reporting and records retrieval.

“At HIP, we tended to work with clients that were big operations and we would put together an annual marketing plan for them based on their budget and objectives whether that was advertising, public relations, promotions or digital marketing,” said Butler. “This is the same approach, except now Paskiewicz Court Reporting will be our primary client. How do we more fully develop the business and generate revenue?”