Marketing strategist and creative problem solver. Most recently, shaping the fan and athlete experience at the 2026 USA Special Olympics.
My name is Jay Cummings. I grew up in Kenmore, Washington and now study at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I am a senior majoring in Business and Enterprise Management with a minor in Cognitive Psychology and Italian.
Most recently I worked as a Production Engineer at the 2026 USA Special Olympics, where I orchestrated planning and live execution across a national multi-venue sporting event involving 3,000+ athletes, 50+ sponsors, and multiple live broadcasts. On site I directed our volunteers and sponsors, designed jumbotron graphics for the ESPN Unified Sports Challenge and managed talent including NBA, NFL, MLB, PGA, and Olympic athletes.
I care about work that moves people and leaves something behind. Here you will find my work and the experiences that have carved my career path. Feel free to reach out!
PROJECTS
Conceptualized and designed the ESPN Unified Challenge, an event integrating 16 sports for the 2026 USA Special Olympics. Led the creative framework determining how the competition would be structured and experienced by participants and spectators, then worked across internal teams to ensure logistics, visuals, and messaging were aligned for a successful show.
Produced all jumbotron graphics for the event and managed talent, serving as a point of contact between production, partners, and our NBA, NFL, and Olympic athletes to ensure seamless execution.
Built a custom AI chatbot for the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games website using HTML, CSS, and a natural language processing API. Designed to handle visitor questions about schedules, venues, volunteering, and parking in real time.
Created volunteer playbooks deployed across 13,000 volunteers at the 2026 USA Special Olympics. Designed to let volunteers with no prior event experience step into their roles with minimal onboarding, the system covered role-specific procedures, escalation paths, and day-of logistics, tailored to the specific needs of each venue.
Engineered this site from scratch using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, VS Code, Claude, and GitHub. A personal space for sharing my work.
May 2026
As part of a cross-functional team, I helped develop the concept and business strategy for NewZ, an AI-powered platform that transforms user recorded footage into multi-angle local news. NewZ won Consumer Product at HackTech 2026 at Caltech, built using Python, TypeScript, and a multi-agent pipeline of Gemini, Marengo, and Claude.
April 2026
Built a centralized SmartSheets dashboard to organize all event details for the 2026 USA Special Olympics. Designed to serve as a single source of truth for internal teams, allowing seamless reference across all phases of event planning from logistics and visuals to sponsor messaging and execution.
Founded a free soccer clinic at a local homeless shelter in Kenmore, Washington, providing over 25 hours of free childcare for working parents. Grew the program through community partnerships with local youth teams, raising $750 in equipment donations and developing a coach leadership program at Inglemoor High School to ensure the clinic's long term success.
April 2022 — August 2025