Lydia Rueger Shoaf

Digital Marketing Strategist

Lydia has many years of print and online magazine editorial experience as both an editor and a writer, specializing in parenting topics and profiles on nonprofit organizations, businesses, and people. Since 2001, she has worked in nonprofit communications, where she has managed social media, coordinated public relations, researched and written blog posts, newsletter content, and donor communications. In between, she published the children’s book, Victor and the Vroom, and has written many other stories based on inspiration from her children.

When she’s not working, Lydia enjoys volunteering in her community, reading, hiking in nature, skiing, and visiting with friends over coffee. A connector of people and researcher of opportunities, Lydia is passionate about seeing people thrive and overcome obstacles.

Lara Gomora

Digital Designer

Lara has been delivering creative web design and branding to businesses, startups, and nonprofits for the past decade. She has a strong background in marketing and brings both a creative and pragmatic approach to all design. Lara likes to dive deep into the needs of each client, expressing their most important value and messaging visually and consistently. She is a graduate of Northern Arizona University with a Visual Communications degree, with an emphasis in Graphic Design. Specializing in web design, she has created dozens of websites, brand identities, and other designs in the print and digital realms.

An avid nature and music lover, Lara is also the Marketing Director & Designer for Pickin’ in the Pines Bluegrass & Acoustic Music Festival (one of the few Nonprofit music festivals around) and has been involved in the branding and management of the festival since its inception in 2006. She resides in Flagstaff, Arizona where she is active in the local arts and music community. She enjoys exploring trails, rivers and backpacking in her spare time, and hanging out with her little ten-pound dog Pancho and her family. 

Michelle Dodd

Founder + CEO

Michelle Dodd is the founder and CEO of Merge Studio, a web design and digital marketing agency serving mission-driven organizations across the country.

After more than two decades in digital communications, Michelle finds joy in putting all the pieces together to raise the bar for clients: by building and leading the right team and finding and serving the right clients. Michelle’s experience in marketing and web development fosters a big-picture approach that leads to tailored, effective solutions.

Michelle spent a few years adventuring on multi-month self-supported bike tours, sea kayak expeditions, and through-hikes. These days she balances her time behind a screen with backpacking, mountain biking, and skiing with her husband and daughter.

Dina Barnese

Project Manager + UX Strategist

Dina has been part of Merge since 2017. With more than 20 years in tech, she has worked as a developer, analyst, designer, and project manager. Today, she focuses on user experience (UX) strategy, applying human-centered design to create digital solutions that bring client visions to life.

Outside of tech, Dina is an artist, musician, and scuba divemaster—currently working toward her instructor certification.

Stacey Schultz

Co-founder + Visual Designer

Stacey is a 20-year design + marketing professional with a unique background that combines a decade as a web designer (both on the corporate and agency side) as well as another decade as a marketing director for a cultural travel company. She has led website and mobile app designs encompassing everything from marketing content to complex online applications. She is guided by a belief that humans always come first, and the best technologies are those that go unnoticed but add value.

Stacey has a 360-degree view of everything that goes into creating and maintaining successful websites and an in-depth understanding of all the skills needed to accomplish even the most complex projects.

She has served as Interactive co-director on the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Board of Directors and on the artists’ committee at PlatteForum, a community-based non-profit for the arts in Denver.