Executive edge: Teri Cavanaugh: CEO runs Western Slope's largest ad firm 'like a ball club'.

• Author: Bronikowski, Lynn
• Position: Cobb and Associates Inc.

Teri Cavanaugh's father, Larry Cobb, died suddenly in March at age 69, leaving her to reflect on the influence he had on her life--from the day she began spinning "Disney Hour" records as a 10-year-old at the tiny Wheatland, Wyo., radio station he founded, to the day in 1982 when she took over as president and CEO of the Western Slope's largest advertising agency, Cobb & Associates Inc., which Larry Cobb founded in 1970 in Grand Junction.

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"I was born into the business," says Cavanaugh, of her advertising and marketing career that spans four decades.

Earlier this year, her agency won two prestigious International Davey Awards for its Rocky Mountain Health Plans ad campaign, an entry that was picked as a winner from among 2,000 that came from around the world. The awards competition, held by the International Academy of Visual Arts in New York, is named for the biblical slayer of Goliath, recognizing small agencies with big ideas.

"I thought it was an exciting business, and have always been fascinated by the psychology of what makes people think, and how common groups of people think," says Cavanaugh, who graduated from Grand Junction High School in 1978, intending to earn her degree from Mesa State. "But I was learning so much in the field that it was almost frustrating to go back into the classroom."

Instead, she continued her career path at Cobb, developing new industry advertising ratings systems, demographic spreadsheets and bringing her father's agency into the computer era. In December, she moved the firm from leased space into a 5,600-square-foot building that she purchased in the heart of downtown Grand Junction.

"We're more like a ball club than a business," says Cavanaugh of her management style that assigns everyone a position. "When the shortstop is out, the manager or someone else can play...