A mom, rock star, business owner and teacher encourages students to reach for the stars.
By Solomon A. Wilson
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
Julie Good, a Jill of all trades, juggles two other gigs outside of teaching.
Most may know Good as a full-time adjunct in this college’s radio-television-broadcast program. Others may know her as a popular singer-songwriter who has performed all over San Antonio, and some may call her boss as she runs her own digital marketing company.
Good, who is an alumna of this college, has been running all three branches of her life simultaneously for longer than seven years.
Coming from a military household in San Antonio, she was raised with a driven mindset to get her education and do what she loves.
Good, 45, is no newbie to the music industry, having played with Grammy Award-winning Joe Reyes on her album “Coffee Conversations” that gets more than 5,000 plays on streaming services such as iTunes and Pandora per quarter year.
Starting piano when she was 4 years old, she quickly grew fond of music and participated in choir from kindergarten through college.
“I picked up my first guitar at 21,” Good said of how she used her roommate’s guitar to practice only three chords she knew from her uncle.
After only six months, she put together her first band, Denali, which performed all of her original songs in venues on the St. Mary’s strip, such as Paper Tiger and Sam’s Burger Joint.
Good cites the Beatles’ “White Album” and John Lennon’s “Imagine” as musical inspirations.
She is currently working with her band Julie and A Dog Named Mike on a new album that will be released in the summer.
With her target audience being songwriters and alternative folk rock fans alike, her music has an acoustic coffeehouse vibe that is easy to listen to on repeat.
Good’s love for poetry meshed perfectly with her love for songwriting and prompted her to pursue a music career while balancing school.
“Every day I went without a degree, I knew there was something I haven’t done,” Good said.
After having her first child, she enrolled at this college after briefly attending Texas State University.
“There was always this pressure, understanding and encouragement to finish school,” Good said, describing how higher education plays a huge role in her family.
During her time as a student here, Good was a frequent user of this college’s early childhood center, which her son attended as a child. Today, he is in law school at St. Mary’s University, while his mom has three degrees in mahogany frames on her desk.
“It is possible to go to school with a child,” Good said of being a single mother reaching for her dreams.
Graduating from this college with an associate degree in RTVB, she then went to UTSA for a bachelor of arts in communications.
She didn’t want to stop there, and hungry for more she earned a master’s in technical communication from Texas State University.
Good finished her education and started her own marketing company, Good Creative Media, in 2010.
They do everything from full music videos to setting up WordPress sites for businesses.
“There are so many people that have great things the world needs to know about, but they don’t know where to start,” Good said of her diverse clientele.
Good Creative Media uses professional tools such as Adobe Creative Suite, InDesign and WordPress to create logos, shirt designs and even album covers including her own.
After running her business and staying deeply involved with her music, she was approached by music business program Coordinator Donnie Meals, who was not only a friend but a supporter of her band, about a teaching position here.
When she’s not reading Marshall McLuhan’s philosophical media writings or studying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, one might find her teaching music marketing, doing concert promotions or website building in one of her six classes.
“I teach my students how to build WordPress websites and social media profiles for music business clients,” Good said of her music marketing classes.
She is also the website manager for fredstockSATX.com, an annual festival in the parking lot of Longwith Radio, Television and Film Building scheduled for April 23.
Good is an advocate for students.
“It is an honor and a treat for people to be able to go to school,” she said.
Balancing this busy lifestyle seems hectic to most, but this is the norm for her.
“I can’t imagine living without any of them,” Good said of her irons in the fire.
A full-time adjunct with six classes, a rock star, a business owner and mom, Good gives this advice to students: “Time passes no matter what. It’s up to you how you invest it.”
In other words, she encourages those who may be where she was to keep going.