Last week, we spoke with Curt Brooks of Mirage Mar·Com to learn about the firm and how it serves the oil and gas industry. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q. To start, could you give a brief introduction to Mirage Mar·Com?

Mirage Mar·Com was founded in 1988. Today, we’re are a marketing firm headquartered in Monroeville that does web development, digital marketing, video training, and video marketing. We also do design work, print, catalogs, brochures, as well as trade show design and event coordination.

For a small firm we do a lot. The majority of our work is in PA, but we deal with companies in Ohio, Texas and all over the world honestly. We’ve been around for over 30 years and have some very talented individuals working here! We all have the same mindset, that is to produce excellent work and do it for a fair price.

We’ve always focused our clientele in the industrial sector, so it was natural fit to breaking into the energy industry. It’s probably been four or five years now that we have been dealing with the MSC and a lot of their clientele in oil and gas; a lot of construction companies, engineering firms, all in the oil and gas arena.  Figuring out how things work and coming up with great marketing solutions is what we do!

Q. Has the growth of energy development in the region provided opportunities for the firm?

To some degree, we’ve ridden the waves up and down, but all in all we have seen good steady growth in the oil and gas industry. I am thankful we have good clients.

Digital Marketing really is the way of the future. Closely integrating your website, social media and email campaigns so that the content served matches what each user is actually interested in engaging with is incredibly effective.

Q. What has been the value of MSC membership?

Honestly, I appreciate knowing the real story and how it benefits America. It’s incredible what the MSC stands for and the companies they represent and how they’re saving lives overseas and saving money for energy consumers here in the US.

Another thing I appreciate is the genuine people that are in this industry. Most of them love the outdoors and enjoy hunting and fishing, so I really look forward to getting together and swapping stories!

Q. What is one thing you’d want to tell a neighbor or friend not in the energy industry, what would it be?

Fracking is not bad. That’s pretty much it. There are challenges in any industry, but I am amazed by the care and the precaution the oil and gas companies take in safety and making sure their people and surrounding people are safe as well as preserving and in some cases improving the environment. The industry doesn’t want to damage streams or forests, they enjoy the outdoors as much as I do. They are fixing mine drainage and they’re cleaning up other people’s messes that were made years ago. I can say nothing but good things about the industry.