About Me

Hi Everyone! My name is James McKenna, a marketing professional based out of New Paltz, New York. I graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 2010 with a BS in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. While at Plattsburgh I interned at a restaurant called the Naked Turtle where I took on the role as Marketing and Promotions Manager. It was an incredible experience opened up my mind to the marketing world. I knew very little about marketing before this opportunity and was thrown right into creating a marketing plan on day one. I guess you could say it was a bit of a “crash course” in marketing and I had no choice but to learn. In the end, I was so grateful to have had this experience.

After graduation from Plattsburgh, I accepted a job at Liberty Travel’s corporate office in Ramsey, New Jersey as an Account Manager for the Liberty Business Travel division. It was my hope that I would be able to move into the marketing department at some point. As fate would have it I moved over to the marketing department almost a year later. Now, I am a Marketing Coordinator at Liberty and it has been the perfect way to start my career.

In this position I am responsible for managing the company’s cooperative marketing budget and scheduling marketing plans for hotel, air, cruise and tour partners. In addition, I write and create mass emails, handle the newspaper insertions and budgets, write copy for any collateral we create, develop concepts for weekly campaigns, and handle local store marketing (LSM) for our locations in the Northeast region. Our team created a Local Store Marketing program that is used by all of our stores in order to increase inquiry and sales. We are very proud of it and look forward to seeing its results over the next year. It was here at Liberty Travel that I realized marketing was truly my calling so I am grateful for being able to make the move to this department.

I will be graduating from Marist College with a Master of Arts in Integrated Marketing Communication later this year. I am looking forward to applying everything I am learning to my current career and beyond.