Nick Vetock

I am a

I bring creative storytelling and technology together. I love long strolls through a brainstorm and generating heel‑over‑head ideas.

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Portrait of Nick Vetock

A decade between craft and system

I'm a creative leader with over a decade of experience aligning big ideas with brand systems and business strategy. I started in print and digital design and grew into building full-scale campaigns, including national TV and NFL sponsorship work at USAA. Working across agency, in-house, and product teams, I've picked up the best habits of each: agency speed, in-house brand loyalty, and a product team's refusal to call anything finished.

I hold degrees in both graphic design and computer science. On any given day, I'm talking typography with designers and APIs with engineers, sometimes in the same meeting. At WGU Academy I lead a multidisciplinary Media & Tech team, where I've steered our AI adoption and built AI-enabled creative workflows that let us make more without lowering the bar.

I've also led my team through a few reorganizations and shifting goals. Through all of it, I've focused on what doesn't change: a team culture people want to be part of, and helping every creative grow real depth in their craft.

  • Manager, Design (Media & Tech) at WGU Academy
  • Salt Lake City, UT
  • 10+ years of design & production experience

Where I add value

Leadership & Operations
  • Multidisciplinary Team Leadership
  • Mentorship & Team Culture
  • Hiring & Interview Frameworks
  • Creative Process & Workflow Design
  • Resourcing & Capacity Planning
  • Change Management
Creative Direction & Brand
  • Creative Direction & Concepting
  • Brand Systems & Standards
  • Art Direction for Photo & Video
  • Campaign Development
  • Visual Direction Aligned to Business Goals
Creative Technology & AI
  • AI Adoption Strategy
  • AI-Enabled Creative Workflows with Claude
  • Figma Design Systems
  • Web & Interactive (HTML / CSS / JS)
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Motion Graphics & Video

Selected Work

Work History

Manager, Design (Media & Tech) Current

Aug 2025 – Present

WGU Academy · Salt Lake City, UT

  • Lead the Media & Tech team of 9 direct reports (7 to 17 across three reorganizations), spanning multimedia design, front-end development, content writing, and student communications. The team is scaling from 32 products to an FY27 plan of 16 certificates, 24 degree pathway courses, and 8 continuous improvement cycles.
  • Led an initiative to reduce the company's learning resource costs. One project alone, moving student resources for tech-based certificates from GitLab to GitHub, cut about $23,000 a year.
  • Launched and led a business process reengineering initiative, building value stream and process flow maps of the product lifecycle to find bottlenecks and wait time and target AI automation. One result cut assessment development tasks from 3 days to a few hours.
  • Created and pitched the Learning Systems Engineer role, a front-end developer position that pairs Open edX development with AI enablement, and hired 3 people into it to build tools that make every role in the department more efficient.
  • Established a staged development timeline with quality gates, replacing a rushed build process. Moved the team to a module-by-module workflow in two-week sprints, so designers and developers could build and review each module as soon as its writing was done, keeping every role working in parallel.
  • Directed event design for the company's annual summit, creating environmental graphics and working with print vendors to produce the signage and collateral installed throughout the hotel.
  • Led the build of a Figma-to-Kiro-to-Open edX component generation workflow, with ideation and user testing built in to collect data on whether each component works and supports its learning objectives.
  • Rebuilt quality assurance as a process that runs throughout the product lifecycle, using automated tooling to replace a manual, 8-hour end-to-end review meeting.
  • Drove team-wide AI adoption through internal tools like a metadata generator and page read-time estimator, a Coda knowledge base, and a monthly AI showcase.
  • Built the department's structured interview process as a hiring manager, mapping role competencies to questions for one-on-one and panel interviews.
  • Built leadership tools for visibility into team operations, including an Asana-connected resourcing and capacity dashboard for sprint planning and quarterly project intake.
  • Integrated multimedia designers, front-end developers, and writers into shared ideation and build cycles that move ideas through prototyping and user testing, with each discipline weighing in on the final learning experience.
  • Brought conceptual thinking into each build to create unique learning experiences that live alongside brand standards.
  • Expanded the Research & Analytics partnership across the team to user test components before launch, and brought in subject matter experts like student support staff so builds reflect what students actually experience and need.
  • Set up and manage the department's AWS environment, including a contractor delivery system and IAM Identity Center sign-in with least-privilege permissions, so non-technical team members can use S3 storage on their own.
  • Set up GitHub version control for the team's shared stylesheet and asset library, with approver roles for reviewing changes.

Lead Multimedia Designer

Oct 2023 – Aug 2025

WGU Academy · Salt Lake City, UT

  • Led and mentored a team of 4 multimedia designers ranging from junior to senior, setting project direction and building their skills in bringing learning experiences to life.
  • Brought an agency approach to course design, treating each certificate like a client in its own industry, so courses from nursing to data analytics shared WGU brand standards but used imagery and interactions true to their field.
  • Led the creation of a product build book that brought visual, writing, and development standards, along with other learning experience processes, into one reference for the team.
  • Aligned course design with the WGU brand, replacing the Academy's separate brand system, and established the brand guidelines the team built from.
  • Introduced Figma to the team and taught designers to prototype quickly in it before building in the learning management system, so ideas moved faster and could go to user testing.
  • Started the team's partnership with Research & Analytics, working together on data-driven course interventions and data collection strategies.
  • Led the move away from third-party tools like Articulate Rise and H5P by building custom graphics and interactives in-house, cutting subscription costs and giving every role more creative freedom.

Sr. Graphic Designer II

May 2021 – Oct 2023

USAA · San Antonio, TX

  • Designed advertising and marketing for USAA's sports sponsorship program and for campaigns aimed at Gen Z active duty service members, along with credit card, banking, and insurance products.
  • Managed the NFL stadium graphics program, producing about 470 LED board designs built to each stadium's specs with consistent messaging across USAA's NFL team partnerships.
  • Art directed photo and video shoots from planning through production, including a Gen Z campaign shoot. Helped cast models and worked on set with the photographer to direct shots and talent.
  • Led concept development and creative execution on high-profile campaigns, collaborating cross-functionally with writers, strategists, and leadership teams.
  • Collaborated with writers on scripts for national NFL TV commercials and on paid social media ads.
  • Key projects: Army-Navy Football, San Antonio Airport, Active Duty campaigns, 100-Year Anniversary, NFL Sponsorship.

Web Designer & Marketing Manager

Oct 2020 – May 2021

Row Business Solutions · New Braunfels, TX

  • Strategized and designed websites and marketing campaigns focused on business growth objectives and user experience.
  • Led client communication, discovery, and project management across the design process.
  • Identified user pain points and optimized brand presence and sales conversion metrics.
  • Collaborated with writers, developers, and clients to align deliverables with strategic objectives.
  • Managed content strategy through email and social media marketing initiatives.

Graphic Designer

May 2019 – Jan 2020

Vant Marketing · New Braunfels, TX

  • Developed websites, landing pages, motion graphics, and digital marketing assets focused on the full sales funnel.
  • Led client discovery meetings to align design solutions with business needs.
  • Collaborated with designers, writers, and analysts to deliver targeted campaigns.
  • Key clients included Santikos Entertainment and Valero Alamo Bowl.

Lead Graphic Designer

Sep 2017 – Oct 2018

The Beytin Agency · Arlington, VA

  • Designed and directed political campaign materials across print, digital, and TV channels.
  • Led high-volume production, creating 5–8 direct mailers daily in a fast-paced environment.
  • Designed the agency's brand identity, website, and print collateral.
  • Supported photo and video production activities on major campaigns.

Design Intern

Aug 2014 – Jan 2016

The Graphic Hive & Converge Gallery · Williamsport, PA

  • Assisted in designing digital and print materials for clients and gallery exhibitions.
  • Supported branding, web design, and content development projects.

Education

Master of Business Administration In Progress

Western Governors University · Est. 2027

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

Western Governors University · 2025

Bachelor of Science, Graphic Design

Pennsylvania College of Technology · 2017