Mike's bio

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 Mike Artell is an award-winning author, illustrator, cartoonist, musician and professional speaker. Mike graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University in 1972 with a B.A. in Marketing and spent the next 15 years in sales and marketing primarily with technology-based companies – although Mike has also repossessed cars, sold color-coded filing systems to doctors (even though he’s color blind), restaurant supplies and lumber & building materials. Mike has extensive experience marketing products and services to organizations involved in real-time data acquisition and control, artificial intelligence/ expert systems, oil/gas exploration, electrical power generation/distribution, high speed simulation and business applications. Mike has a background in customer service and training applications for several companies. Mike served on the board of two small technology companies and has provided freelance marketing consulting services to a number of organizations including Texas Instruments.

In 1987, Mike began a new career as a freelance writer/illustrator/cartoonist. Mike hosted his own television show on WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in New Orleans and each week his show attracted more than 50,000 viewers - Number one in the market in the time slot. Mike also created cartoons for many national publications including The Washington Post and Entrepreneur Magazine. Mike’s first children’s books were published in 1990 and since then, he has written and/or illustrated more than 35 books. Many of Mike’s books have won awards. Most recently, his book PETITE ROUGE – A CAJUN RED RIDING HOOD was named 2009 Read Aloud Book of the Year by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

Over the years, Mike has shared his techniques for thinking, writing and drawing more creatively with hundreds of thousands of students and teachers. Mike also stays busy as a platform speaker addressing the annual conferences of groups such as the American Society for Training and Development, American Society of Veterinary Medicine, Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Prevent Child Abuse Texas, Library of Michigan Foundation and many other business, education, healthcare and association groups. Mike speaks on the subjects of creativity/innovation, communication, using humor to reduce stress and build community within organizations and the power of perspective.

Mike lives in Covington, Louisiana with his wife Susan, a middle school librarian. They have two grown daughters and 5 grandchildren. Check out Mike's content on YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social media.