Meet the Team
Tanner Almon
Producer
Tanner Almon
Originally from Baltimore, Tanner is an award-winning filmmaker currently residing in New York's best borough, Brooklyn. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in film, he landed an exciting gig as personal assistant to filmmaking legend John Waters. This eventually led to his first production job as an office assistant on the feature film Wedding Crashers, after which he packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles, where he worked primarily as a production coordinator on television commercials. But a longing for the cool, East Coast October air sent him packing one last time, this time to New York City. In New York he worked as a freelance editor until finding his dream job as a producer at Howcast, where he takes great pride in creating how-to videos that are informative, fun, and engaging.
On weekends Tanner can be found shooting whimsical short films and photos with his wife, Vicki. He also enjoys gazing into his super awesome fish tank and eating pizza, often at the same time.
Rick Bashkoff
Vice President, Partnerships & Network Development
Rick Bashkoff
Rick manages Howcast's partnerships and network business, including top-tier distribution partnerships, network strategy and analysis, sales team support, yield optimization, reseller partner management, and media buying services. He also oversees the team responsible for community, network, and ad operations
Previously, Rick worked at Warner Music Group, where he was responsible for all digital video accounts and the implementation of WMG’s first digital video strategy. He graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park with a degree in communications.
When he's not at Howcast, you can find Rick watching the New York Giants or hanging out with his family and close friends.
Tom Bender
Supervising Producer, Content Scaling
Tom Bender
Tom works on content strategy and production at Howcast. He has produced hundreds of web videos on subjects including telephones, cryogenics, and bicycles. He studied physics at Princeton.
Alex Ellerson
Executive Vice President, Business Development, and General Counsel
Alex Ellerson
Alex Ellerson oversees business development and is also the company's counsel. Prior to joining Howcast, Alex was the Head of Entertainment and Premium Content Partnerships for Google Video and YouTube. Before joining Google, Alex was the Senior Director of Business Development for Yahoo! Search. During his 7-year tenure at Yahoo!, Alex also held positions as the General Manager of Yahoo! Health and Director of Business Development for Yahoo!'s media group.
Earlier in his career, Alex was the COO and general counsel of CMJ until its acquisition in 1999. He was also an associate at the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and a law clerk to The Honorable Amalya L. Kearse (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit).
Alex holds a JD from the Columbia University School of Law and graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in English literature. He also serves as a member of the Programming Committee of the N.Y. Chapter of the U.S. Copyright Society when he's not running marathons, like the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C., or watching the Yankees win their next World Series!
Juris Galang
Software Engineer
Juris Galang
Juris Galang has been programming for more than a decade in various languages and problem spaces. He currently maintains and contributes to several open-source projects, and dabbles in generative art and genetic algorithms (doesn't everyone?) in his spare time. Follow him on twitter @jurisgalang and at github.com/jurisgalang.
Ari Hershey
Office Manager and Executive Assistant
Ari Hershey
As Howcast's office manager and executive assistant, Ari does everything from scheduling meetings and handling internal communications to serving as official social chair. She's extremely talented at pulling together a last-minute event—but really dominates at getting people to have a good time.
After earning a degree in art history from Colgate University, Ari spent 5 months working on Barack Obama's presidential campaign in Grand Junction, Colo. Her main responsibility focused on the difficult task of trying to make a red state understand a blue-state point of view. Before joining Howcast, Ari worked as a Project Coordinator at the FACES Foundation, part of NYU Medical Center. Born and raised in downtown D.C., she spends her free time working out, reading countless restaurant blogs, and dreaming of sunny music festivals.
Kc Ifeanyi
Assistant Editor
Kc Ifeanyi
As assistant editor, Kc's responsibilities run the gamut from creating, editing, and programming content to manning Howcast's social media fronts. Before coming to Howcast, Kc honed his craft in the editorial departments of Fortune Small Business magazine, Time Inc.'s custom publishing division Content Solutions, and Moving Pictures Magazine.
Originally from the "Little Apple" of Manhattan, Kans., Kc migrated south to Louisiana at the tender age of 4 and spent the following 19 years plotting his escape. Kc graduated with a degree in journalism from Louisiana Tech University, where he officially obtained the right to call himself an "award-winning journalist" with honors for his satirical weekly column. Kc is an avid tennis fan who also spends his time reading way too much and desperately attempting to catch up on his Netflix queue.
Jeffrey Kaufman
Vice President, Strategic Programming
Jeffrey Kaufman
Jeffrey oversees strategic partner programming for Howcast, including content development and client management. Before joining Howcast, Jeffrey was Vice President of Programming and Editorial at NBCU, leading content integration, distribution, programming strategy, and editorial design for both NBBC and Hulu.
Prior to NBC, Jeffrey spent over a decade at MTV in programming and research and strategic development, holding many positions and ultimately serving as Vice President of MTV Research & Planning. He was involved in developing some of MTV's signature programming, including Jackass , Celebrity Deathmatch, Total Request Live, Made, Cribs, and Laguna Beach. He also oversaw the strategic planning for the launches of MTV2, MTV Films, MTV Games, MTV Overdrive, and Urge.
Jeffrey graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Because he used one to propose to his beautiful wife, his favorite video is How to Create a Modern Scavenger Hunt.
Rosemarie Lennon
Senior Writer
Rosemarie Lennon
As Senior Writer, Rosemarie has written more than 1,300 scripts for Howcast. Before joining Howcast, she worked at several women’s magazines, enjoyed a long stint as a tabloid reporter that led to a tell-all book about David Letterman (and a shouting match with Julia Roberts), and helped launch the short-lived magazine Inside TV (thank you to the 12 people who bought it.) She graduated with a degree in communications arts and sciences from Queens College. In her free time, Rosemarie likes to watch true crime and every iteration of Real Housewives; see movies on the big screen; eat, drink, and be merry with friends; and plan her future travels.
Darlene Liebman
Cofounder and Vice President, Production
Darlene Liebman
Darlene is responsible for helping to find talented filmmakers and other creatives who make the vision of cool short-form videos a reality.
Before cofounding Howcast, Darlene produced short-form animated content at Nickelodeon and worked on the first season of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the show that changed the face of Bravo. She began her career in New York's independent film industry, working on a variety of feature films, TV shows, and commercials.
Darlene was born and raised in Manhattan and loves to continue her explorations of New York City. She is a graduate of Lehigh University, serves on the advisory board for movements.org, and was named a top woman in technology in 2009 by Fast Company.
Darlene’s favorite Howcast video is How to Dance Like Beyonce because dance is universal and brings people together.
Jason Liebman
Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer
Jason Liebman
In 2007, Jason Liebman cofounded Howcast with the goal of creating the largest—and highest quality—library of how-to videos on the web, providing users with the answer to almost any question, whenever, wherever they need to know how. Jason is also a cofounder of movements.org, a nonprofit organization that helps young people to effect nonviolent change around the world using 21st-century tools.
Before Howcast, Jason worked at Google on the YouTube, Google Video, and AdSense teams. Prior to Google, Jason was Executive Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Applied Semantics before it was acquired by Google in 2003—one of the largest acquisitions in Google's history. Jason began his career at Credit Suisse as an investment banker. A New York City native, Jason graduated from Duke University. Because it empowers youth activists and global citizens to use 21st-century tools to stand up against oppression, Jason's favorite video is How To Smart Mob.
Erica Magaril
Casting Associate
Erica Magaril
As Casting Associate, Erica scours New York and beyond for amazing experts to appear in Howcast's how-to videos. Prior to joining the Howcast team, Erica spent several years in the wonderful world of reality television, casting shows such as ABC's True Beauty, Bravo's Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Animal Planet's Underdog to Wonderdog. She has also worked on numerous pilots and development projects, and loves meeting new and interesting people and scouting up and coming talent.
When Erica isn't watching reality TV or reading celebrity gossip, she loves doing anything related to food (namely cooking and eating) and belting out 80s hair metal during late-night karaoke performances. Although Erica has lived in New York City ever since attending Barnard College of Columbia University, where she earned a degree in anthropology and film, she'll always be a Jersey girl at heart.
Andrew Maher
Data Scientist
Andrew Maher
Andrew first began working with data while studying physics and applied math at the University of New Hampshire. Before joining Howcast as Data Scientist, Andrew worked in the Boston area in bioinformatics and atmospheric science, developing machine-learning alogrithms for prostate cancer prediction and analyzing the output of particle-dispersion models run on NASA supercomputers. Aside from his nerdy endeavors, Andrew plays, writes, and records music with a few different bands and is also working on mastering the fine art of making the most unhealthy "healthy" breakfast by cooking kale in bacon grease.
Heather Menicucci
Director, Filmmaker Program
Heather Menicucci
As the Director of Howcast’s Filmmaker Program, Heather loves seeing filmmakers from all over the world bring instructional videos to life with their production chops and unique storytelling styles. Before she made her way to Howcast she shot, produced, and edited award-winning shorts, corporate video for brands like Converse and Hewlett-Packard, educational programs for Channel 4 UK, and an Aerosmith documentary.
Heather has always been a big fan of all things DIY and is the author of Let's Get Primitive: The Urban Girl's Guide to Camping. She has been interviewed by MTV about sex in the great outdoors, attended way more weddings (as a videographer) than she'd like to recall, taught high school students video editing, and blotted the sweat from Steven Tyler's forehead. Heather earned her degree in film from Boston University. Currently a Brooklynite, Heather often finds that her favorite video, How To Identify Birds: The Pigeon, comes in quite handy.
Ben Oviatt
Producer
Ben Oviatt
Ben is a filmmaker, animator, and writer whose films and experimental works have been showcased in festivals and galleries across the country. He graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he was awarded a spot in the prestigious Catherine B. Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship and worked as a teacher’s assistant advising students on their animation endeavors. Ben is currently an active participant in New York's vibrant alternative-media scene, and his work and musings can be found on the popular podcast NYGeekCast. In his spare time he loves to bike, hike, ski, and paint.
Rob Pimentel
Post Production Coordinator
Rob Pimentel
Rob is responsible for preparing Howcast videos for distribution and quality control for special projects. He knows more about codecs than any human should, and has mastered more Final Cut Pro shortcuts than real-life shortcuts. Prior to Howcast, he worked in the independent film scene in New York as both an editor and on-set key grip. Rob holds a degree in film production from CUNY Brooklyn. In his free time, he can be found playing his new video game of the month or spending countless hours on Reddit.
Sanjay Raman
Cofounder and Chief Product Officer
Sanjay Raman
Sanjay is Howcast's Chief Product Officer, leading all product and engineering strategy across the company and driving several strategic business development initiatives. Prior to cofounding Howcast, Sanjay was a product manager for Google Apps, leading the distribution of Google products to enterprises and SMBs. As one of the initial members of the Google Video team, Sanjay launched the first user-generated video upload platform and defined several key areas of the product.
Before Google, Sanjay spent 2 years at Morgan Stanley and cofounded an enterprise wireless software company that was acquired in 2001. Sanjay holds a BS and MS in computer science, both from MIT.
An avid skier and cyclist, Sanjay enjoys all the outdoor activities that San Francisco has to offer.
Indy Stein
Partnerships and Operations Coordinator
Indy Stein
Originally from Boston, Indy joined Howcast immediately after graduating from the University of Vermont, where he majored in Business. Indy's also a graduate of Howcast's internship program, where he rose to fame the summer before his senior year. Indy's still getting used to the differences between New York and Boston, but he's learning pretty quickly—he's already a die-hard Knicks fan.
John Wilkinson
Software Engineer
John Wilkinson
Digitally inspired early on by his father and video games, John started programming recreationally at a young age and never grew out of his affinity for bits. He was brought into the world of web development with Ruby on Rails during college while working at a collectible card game dealer hosting company and never looked back. He finds clever UIs and creative site designs inspiring, but he's most elated when wrestling down an architectural barrier meshed deep within the server code. If you manage to catch him away from the computer, he's likely tinkering with his bike, enjoying some quality beer time, or saving the princess from another castle.