About Us
19 Oaks is a Maine-based strategic sales and marketing firm integrating expert research, brand strategy, creative design, and implementation into a cohesive growth approach. We help businesses and mission-driven organizations move forward with clarity and confidence, building systems and messaging that are practical, measurable, and built to last. Our approach reflects Maine’s common-sense ethos: rigorous thinking, creative problem-solving, hard work, and results that endure.
President & Sales/Marketing Director
Shay Bellas founded 19 Oaks in 2008 with a clear belief: sustainable growth comes from strong systems, focused strategy, and disciplined execution. With extensive sales and marketing leadership experience, she specializes in building channel strategies, developing high-performing teams, and creating scalable revenue processes.
She has led cross-functional teams, built sales infrastructures from the ground up, and guided organizations through measurable expansion.
At 19 Oaks, Shay brings entrepreneurial drive, grit, strategic clarity, hands-on leadership, and unmatched connections throughout Maine. She ensures that your vision for growth is not only thoughtfully planned — but fully executed.
Brand Strategy Director
Scott Kirk helps organizations define who they are, what they stand for, and how to communicate it with clarity and impact. With a career spanning brand development, advertising, and strategic communications, he specializes in uncovering the core truths that differentiate businesses in competitive markets.
His experience includes specialty food retail, tourism, manufacturing, architecture, construction, biotech, education, transportation, sports, and community economic development.
At 19 Oaks, Scott combines research, positioning, and storytelling to build brands that are clear, credible, and built to endure.
Implementation Director
Alexis Bellas turns strategy into action. She works closely with clients to bridge the gap between planning and execution, ensuring initiatives move forward efficiently and deliver measurable results.
With expertise in sales operations, CRM optimization, and system development, she leads projects involving pipeline buildouts, campaign launches, and process improvements. Her work ensures clients implement scalable systems that support sustained growth.
At 19 Oaks, Alexis brings operational discipline and practical problem-solving to every engagement.
Creative/Design Director
Karen Kirk blends artistic intuition with strategic clarity to elevate organizational brands. With formal training from the Savannah College of Art and Design and decades of creative leadership, she translates complex ideas into compelling visual systems that build trust and engagement.
Karen’s experience spans brand identity, campaign strategy, illustration, digital and print design, environmental graphics, and multimedia storytelling. She has led creative teams and delivered award-winning work across mission-driven, financial, and education-focused organizations.
At 19 Oaks, Karen ensures strategy is expressed with precision and integrity, creating cohesive, resonant visual systems built to stand the test of time.
Research Director
Scott Bahr brings more than three decades of experience in market research and analytics, helping organizations make strategic decisions grounded in data. His work uncovers customer behavior, market trends, and competitive insights that shape effective growth strategies. As President of Cairn Consulting Group, he has led industry-defining research initiatives across outdoor hospitality, travel, gaming, sports, and entertainment.
At 19 Oaks, Scott translates complex data into clear, actionable direction, ensuring strategy is supported by evidence.
19 Oaks blends two ideas that represent our business philosophy.
Nineteen is a prime number, whole, indivisible, strong. It brings together 1 and 9, the beginning and the completion. A start, and the wisdom that comes with finishing well. An ending that becomes a new beginning.
We chose the oak because it endures. It bends in hard winds, holds fast through storms, and grows deep roots before reaching wide. And from a single acorn, a forest can grow.
19 Oaks reflects that belief in steady strength and quiet resilience, and in the understanding that one clear idea, thoughtfully planted and carefully tended, can grow into something far greater than where it began.
