"The board just fired me.” “The TV trucks are in the parking lot.” “We have a tough situation.” Those are my kind of phone calls.In these situations, the former journalist in me draws on my breaking-news experience as I quickly put a plan in place to make clients feel more confident, more in command. Calm, reasoned and experienced mean a lot when it looks like events are spiraling out of control.Yet what I like even more is the opportunity to step back and help an executive team think strategically. How can the alignment of communications help strengthen a business? That’s a challenge I embrace.Sometimes it’s creating a rapid response strategy that kicks in when a company is in the heat of the flame, and you have hours (OK, maybe minutes?) to initiate a plan. Other times it’s creating a communications plan that stretches from grassroots to government officials to help communicate the right messages around challenging public policy issues. And best of all is when our clients have the luxury of stepping back to create a strategic communications plan that aligns everything from website and social media content to media outreach and storytelling.I honed my skills and cool-under-pressure demeanor in a newspaper newsroom. By its nature, that’s a frenzied environment seemingly in constant crisis mode. In 2009, I founded Cindy Miller Communications (CMC), and in the years since then I’ve gained the trust of numerous CEOs and executives who confidently invite me into their inner circle to help navigate complicated issues.In the midst of this exciting career, I stay focused on what’s truly important in life. I’ve logged decades of hot afternoons in the stands of T-ball, youth, high school and college baseball games; planned countless family vacations; and traveled the world with my husband, Edward Miller. And I’ve built CMC around the idea that the best work comes from people who are happy at home as well as work. That may be my most valuable skill.