Born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, but grew up in every state
on the east coast due to his father's consulting career.
As a young boy he turned out 8mm features spliced for home
movies with such titles as Monkey on Fire (not to be confused
with Man on Fire). The son of an engineer and illustrator,
young Polins was trained for a career in art and became
so proficient he was published by age 12.
Do to his families extensive
moving, Polins begged his parents to send him to military
school after seeing the film Taps. During a move
his family made in the 11th grade, his father died suddenly
of congestive heart failure. Polins would return to Camden
Military Academy in Camden, South Carolina for his senior
year to graduate third in his class with honors. Polins
attended The Pennsylvania State University as a journalism
broadcasting major in 1987.
He tackled the arts vigorously
both in and out of the classroom. By the age of 20, he had
emulated Jackson Pollock, Mark Chagall and his relative
Frederick Remington. While at Penn State he contributed
to the campus radio and television station. He enlisted
in the United States Marine Corps during the summer of 1990
and spent 13 weeks at boot camp. Do to a knee injury and
surgery he would later receive an honorable/medical discharge
within a year. He then left college in 1992 with three credits
short of his B.A. in journalism broadcasting.
He moved to northern Virginia
for a much needed job with his brother writing radio ads
and press releases for his franchised weight loss corporation.
Shortly after, his brother sold the business and moved to
Florida. Jobless and confused, Polins would "try his
hand" at several different careers. They ranged from
radio stations to magazines, but he always remained in the
arena of communication. It is at this time, the darkest
of times, he would write various works of award winning
poetry and write a children's book that would later be illustrated
by his mother and published in 2004. He returned to Pennsylvania
to complete his remaining three credits and graduated from
Penn State with a B.A. in Journalism Broadcasting in 1993.
In 1995 Polins moved to Tampa,
Florida and tried his talent as an actor for two years.
He was an extra, stand-in and feature in everything from
pilots and TV shows to mainstream blockbusters. He would
eventually reach a few speaking roles in some "B"
low-budget films; however, He remained unfulfilled.
After two years in the Florida
film industry, Polins served as a senior member on the creative
team of two Tampa-based advertising agencies. In 1999 Polins
accepted a position with a Tampa-based Internet Incubator.
There, Polins served as the Marketing Director and created
the brand platform for The Agency Applet™, for which
he was featured in Adweek Magazine. Polins also negotiated
the Web site design and implementation of Nokia Latin America
and was directly responsible for securing the first interactive
Addys Web site project for the American Advertising Federation.
In early 2000, Polins co-founded
Coniglio Polins, an interactive firm based in Tampa. Coniglio
Polins would later merge with marketing consulting veterans
Hill & Associates to form Hill,
Coniglio, Polins & Associates in 2003. At HCP, Polins
serves as a managing partner and a senior consultant for
broadcast/film, IT solutions, and creative direction.
Polins is in the process of producing
three films in the next four years with Gulf+Atlantic
Films. As an offshoot of the Descansos
project, he recently teamed with Director Joe Kipikash to
launch RoadsideTributes,
a free posting service for friends and family members who
would like to create tributes to lost love ones, not on
the roadside, but on the Information Superhighway.
Polins has been married eight years to his beautiful wife
Maria. The two were best friends during college, but never
actually dated! Maria is an Internet Consultant and restores
and sells homes for a living. They live in south Tampa in
a 100+ year-old original Bayshore home that was moved in
the 1940s one block inland. They have a St. Bernard named
Winfield and three cats. Together they enjoy home renovation,
film, antiques, art and kayaking.
Leadership Tampa Graduate 2005
Board member with Rennaisance Center for the Arts
Tampa Penn State Club
Tampa Bay Advertising Federation
American Marketing Association
Young Artists of America
