Mark Serafino

It all started when I called our corporate marketing department to complain about the most recent 'on hold' messages that had been recorded. I asked our marketing director if she wasn't embarrassed that the 'announcer' on our message was totally mispronouncing a very basic word in our industry? I scolded her for not phonetically spelling out the words and having a walk though with the production people and then suggested that if we couldn't get it right maybe we should just go back to music! Janet, our marketing director agreed and then casually said; well, 'I've never met the people from this company because I'm in Philadelphia and they are in St. Louis.' "Janet!" I said, "I'm IN St. Louis!, when can I go there?" Within a few weeks, I was pulling up to the production company that was going to record our messages that day. Armed with our spots and fully prepared to 'correct' any mis-pronounced words, I was somewhat taken aback when I realized that I was the only one in the studio besides the producer! For some reason, they had mis-understood Janet's inquiry about my coming to 'coach' the voice talent on pronunciation and thought she had asked that I come and DO the recordings! Well, as they say, the rest is history. I've had a blast doing the recordings and the production staff has been very complimentary of my work, even encouraging me to 'branch out' and expand my horizons. So, with their professional help and encouragement, here I am. Nervous, anxious and ready to do a good job for whomever hires me. While I have no formal training in voice over work. My experience as a speaker dates back to when I was 17 years old and took my first job as a 'professional' musician playing in a weekend Top 40 band in New Jersey. Initially hired as a musician only, before long the band's leader had me singing cover songs by Barry White, Lou Rawls and others, in a wide variety of song styles. Our band was hired several times to make 'demo' recordings for song writers to send to recording companies as audition tapes. I have 'some' recording studio experience. Then in my later 20's and 30's, I became involved in Toastmasters International, where in 1989 I won the "Table Topics" spontaneous speech contest for my region, finishing first out of more than 1000 contestants. The following year, I took second place in another Toastmaster's competition on giving verbal evaluations. Then my career in sales took off, and I was making presentations almost daily to customer groups from 2 to 200 people. By the early 2000's I was the master of ceremonies at a monthly meeting in St. Louis featuring Catholic speakers from around the country. I was responsible for organizing and coordinating the event, then introducing the guest speaker and moderating the question and answer period. In 2006, I had the great honor of introducing His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince Bertrand d' Orleans Braganza (a descendant of King St. Louis IX) to a crowd of over 1500 people at the Adam's Mark Hotel in St. Louis. My career as a salesman started in 1984 and has since grown to my position as a Regional Vice President for a distributor of electrical wire and cable with offices around the country. Currently, I am responsible for 2 distribution centers, one in Chicago and one in St. Louis with 26 direct reports in sales and operations. I am a devout Roman Catholic and an avid reader with a great love for history. I live in Franklin County on a small 10 acre farm where my family and I raise chickens and love to garden. I have also worked as a bus-boy in an Italian Restaurant in New Jersey, on an assembly line in a small factory and in a food distribution warehouse. We also own a family run embroidery business that we operate out of our home. We specialize in custom projects from 1 to 100 pieces.