Our Origin Story
Picture It ...
Erin Hardy and Joe Gillespie bring to Unretained literal decades of experience with words, content, storytelling, and leadership. Our skills, passion, work ethic, and knowledge have brought us to this moment—a moment we want to share with you to help meet your content goals.
Erin
Founder, Operational Strategy Empress, Content Goddess, Copy Mom
Erin Dabrawsky Hardy is a West Virginia coal miner’s daughter turned corporate creative who has been wrangling words and content strategies for more than 30 years.
Gen X to the core, she doesn’t wait around for someone to hand her a playbook. She figures it out, solves the thing, and makes the playbook herself.
Over the last 15 years, Erin has been focused on B2B content and marketing, but she also spent years writing B2C copy for HSN, and cut her teeth as a corporate reporter for retail pharma. Along the way, she’s led teams, mentored up-and-comers, and partnered with clients who want results—not fluff.
When she’s not consulting, you can usually find her paddleboarding at Fort DeSoto Park, biking the Pinellas Trail, or walking her very needy dog, Cappy. At home, she’s always crocheting (because, yes, that’s how she parties now) and trying to keep her orange cat, Bean, happy enough that he doesn’t plot her demise.
Erin is a long-time resident of Gulfport, Florida, where weird is the default setting—and that suits her perfectly.
Joe
Chief Copy Officer, Editing Viscount, Content Operations Duke, Copy Dad
Joe Gillespie brings 35-plus years of professional experience to Unretained. He started his career in newspapers and spent more than two decades in the industry as a copy editor, reporter, and page designer.
As the newspaper industry started to fizzle, Joe seamlessly transitioned to writing and editing marketing content for agencies and in-house operations. His fifteen years of experience in this realm include team management, process development and implementation, and writing and editing content as varied as white papers, press releases, web copy, magazine articles, blogs, and social posts.
Joe is originally from Chicago, spent 12 years in Wisconsin, and moved to Salt Lake City in 2000. He lives in SLC with his wife, two sons who attend the University of Utah, two dogs, and a highly opinionated cat. In his spare time, he enjoys classic video games (favorite game: Adventure for the Atari 2600), all sorts of board games (favorite game: Ticket to Ride), and rooting for the Cubs, whom he hopes win another World Series soon.
