Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracey Haldeman.
Hi Tracey, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I opened the doors to Pinnacle in 1997 with one goal in mind: to make the world a better place. I had been an art director at several Baltimore Ad agencies and I found that I didn’t like how most organizations treated their team.
My first employer was a woman and she was one of the worst offenders for female discrimination. After my job interview, this employer offered me $2,000 less per year in salary than what she said the salary initially was supposed to be. When I asked her why the decrease she said it was because I was pregnant and she needed to pay someone to cover me while I was on maternity leave. She also openly discriminated in other hiring decisions, admitting she avoided hiring men to dodge providing health insurance.
I’d seen talented people burned out by toxic cultures. I also wanted to be able to focus my work on projects that had a purpose. I knew there had to be a way to build a supportive team and focus on work that mattered.
When I was coming back from maternity leave from my second child, the firm that I worked for at the time had just been sold to another agency. I had to interview with the new agency before I came back. During this interview I was asked questions about my childcare plans and if I would need to leave ‘early’ (which really meant on time) to pick up my daughter. I knew right away it was time for me to go out on my own. I was very lucky to have a father-in-law who believed in me and was an entrepreneur himself with a company that would need the types of services my new business could offer.
With his support and early business, we launched Pinnacle and started out doing work for a variety of clients—local institutions like Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore Child Abuse Center and Baltimore City Community College, businesses like Marley Station Mall and Red Brick Station Restaurant, even the Baltimore Zoo. Eventually we started getting more projects related to public health and environmental protection and were able to make that most of our work.
Three decades later, I’m proud to say we’ve built exactly what I set out to create: a company working with purpose, where talented people thrive.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I was surprised to find the bank I opened my first business account with had some sexist practices. After opening my account I started getting mail addressed to my business to the attention of “Mrs.” and then my husband’s name. At this point, my husband was not yet a partner in my firm and he was not on the bank account. I was shocked and called the bank. The bank proceeded to tell me that was just a customary practice. I was furious-not just for myself, but for every woman trying to build something of her own. I felt marginalized. Needless to say I cancelled my account that day and opened with a different bank. That day taught me that sometimes progress means walking away and taking your business where it’s valued.
My company had several dot com clients before the dot com bubble burst. We were left with unpaid invoices from companies that went out of business and never paid their bills. It was hard and it didn’t feel fair to absorb someone else’s financial failure. I learned not to extend too much credit to clients no matter how much I liked them personally. Slowly but surely, we were able to dig ourselves out of that hole.
COVID was the most recent significant struggle. Between not being able to do some of our outreach work because of quarantining and not having the team on site working together, we worked through several challenges. We acquired equipment so our team could work more efficiently from home and we changed how we connected so that we could work more effectively without being in the same office space. Now, we have a team that works well together and appreciates working remotely from their own spaces. Those adaptations not only got us through the pandemic-they’ve made us a more flexible, resilient company that can serve clients anywhere.
As you know, we’re big fans of Pinnacle Communications Resource Co.. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Doing work that does good, Pinnacle Communications is a certified woman-owned marketing agency working at the intersection of public health and social change. Simply put: we help nonprofits and government agencies convince people to make healthier choices—whether that’s getting vaccinated, protecting the environment, or accessing healthcare.
What sets us apart is our scientific approach to behavior change. We don’t just create pretty campaigns; we use Community-Based Social Marketing and other evidence-based methodologies to understand why people do what they do, then design interventions that actually work. We’ve published peer-reviewed research on our methods and have nearly three decades of experience turning complex health data into messages that resonate with real people.
With offices in Baltimore and Montana, we serve clients across the country—from the Chesapeake Bay to the Rocky Mountains. We tackle everything from environmental sustainability to public health crises. Every project starts with the same question: How do we create positive, lasting change in communities? That’s been our north star since day one.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I couldn’t have built Pinnacle without my father-in-law, Bob Haldeman, who was the first to ask me the question ‘How would you do that if you had your own business?’ That question changed everything. And, of course, my husband Brian Haldeman. Without a supportive partner who allowed me the time and space to focus on growing the company, I don’t know where we’d be today. He’s a partner in the firm now, bringing his expertise in digital marketing, web design, and finance, and our company is all the better for him. And honestly, my team deserves enormous credit—every day they are doing the work of turning our mission into reality. Building a company on values only works if you have people who share them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pinnacleco.com
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PinnacleCo1997
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/pinnaclecommuni/our-creative-samples/
