I help organizations plan and respond to crises, using ethical, strategic communications. I train spokespeople, subject matter experts and executives to deliver their key messages to their ultimate audiences clearly, effectively and memorably. As a complete bonus, I get to work with one of the best public relations professionals in the business, C3 Collective's Founder, Jenna Cooper, APR!

I fell in love with lecturing when I was a junior in college and had the opportunity to act as a teaching assistant for undergraduates studying computer science; I have continued to work on my presentation skills and provide training and coaching ever since.* I have helped train Leadership Oregon class members in media interviewing techniques for the past 10 years* I have provided two-day workshops on basic public information officer skills (FEMA's G-290 course) to all levels of state and local government communicators for the past 10 years* I have presented dozens of hour-long seminars to Portland/Vancouver and Salem area communications professionals* I have taught media training courses to communicators in a wide variety of Oregon government agencies* I have presented at the PRSA-North Pacific District's conference, the Portland Communicators Conference (put on by PRSA-Oregon chapter); the IAP2 annual state conference, the TransComm conference (an annual gathering of several hundred state department of transportation communications professionals) and at PSU's Friday Forum.* I have co-taught PRSA-Oregon chapter's course supporting area communicators' achievement of their Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) since 2010.

This was a very difficult job to leave! We did important work. But it was time to follow my own path. At ODOT, I led the team of spokespeople for the state department of transportation—eight people spread all around Oregon, many of whom I had the pleasure of hiring. As one of the agency's chief spokespersons, I responded daily to media at all levels--worldwide, nationwide, statewide, local; I also listeedn and talked to our citizens and stakeholders daily, to make sure we kept their concerns in mind when we designed and built projects meant to improve people's lives.I worked daily with my team to help them do their jobs; I advised our senior executives about the possible effects of planned actions or statements. It's all about providing the agency's expert perspective AND actively listening to the people we affect. My original job 15 years ago was all about the media; it evolved within a few years to be all about the community—call it community engagement or stakeholder outreach, it means we listen before we decide, and we listen some more and then change.I led our team during bad weather events, where we provided nearly 24/7 coverage of every corner of this state to provide media and travelers the latest accurate information and expert advice about travel. I designed the winter weather crisis communications plans, techniques and schedules we used to achieve what the Portland media will tell you is one of the best government agency responses they've seen. I have presented crisis training to spokespeople from other agencies and electric utilities.

I presented the agency's perspective on its projects, policies and programs. Please notice that I said 'perspective,' not 'defense.' No public agency needs to be defended. If it's not doing right, it should change what it's doing!I highly recommend this job to anyone who loves working with the media--you're talking to dozens of reporters each week on twice as many topics. And then winter hits... You learn to be VERY strategic!

In 2017 Oregon's three PRSA chapters merged to form the new PRSA-Oregon chapter. I was honored to be the chapter's Treasurer in its inaugural year.

I was honored to continue my involvement on the PRSA-Portland Metro Chapter board for two years as Director at Large, Sponsorships. PRSA-Portland's strength is providing useful, immediately-applicable professional development opportunities to Pacific Northwest communications professionals. We need your and your company's help to continue our efforts: Support us! Provide your subject matter experts to help us learn; underwrite our luncheons and conferences to help us maintain our ridiculously low registration fees. Contact us anytime (sponsorships@prsa-portland.org) for details.

After serving two years as chapter president, I was honored to work in an ex officio role during 2012, supporting the leadership of president Jenna Cooper-Gross and president-elect Amber Lindsey. We accomplished a great deal in 2013, providing Pacific Northwest communications professionals the best professional development and networking opportunities possible.

I'm honored to have served as president of a great organization of more than 200 public relations professionals in the Portland metro area. Our board is a dedicated group of volunteers who understand that giving back is so rewarding.

I helped build name ID and shorten the sales cycle for this pre-IPO re-invented 14-year old hi-tech company in the automotive space: "We make it possible for you to shop for a car online!" Our marketing department had tremendous fun redefining everything about Chrome's image--and inventing "The Chrome Standard"! Our work and the PR strategy helped the company to 50+% market share and multimillion dollar growth in less than two years.I managed contracts and relationships with several PR agencies and research consultants, performed hundreds of live interviews and gave speeches at trade shows. This job was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had. There's no such thing as "down time" in a pre-IPO angel-invested startup!

I anchored more than 5,000 newscasts; I produced thousands of newscasts, many of which I anchored. (Talk about sleeping in the bed you just made! Don't make any production mistakes...) I reported from all over the US, and from Romania after the overthrow of Ceaucescu and from Bosnia during the war. I produced and hosted a public affairs news show. My work aired on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS. I was nominated for more than a dozen news Emmys, and won a number of SPJ, RTNDA and AP awards for my writing and reporting.

I provided programming support and user interface design for the AFFIRM semi-automated theorem prover. AFFIRM--named after the race horse!--proved that program verification was possible. The approach stated the expectations of the behavior of program source code in first-order predicate logic, and then tried to 'rewrite' or simplify the complex logical statement using human-provided rewrite rules and built-in arithmetic and logic knowledge, to reach the simple statement TRUE (or FALSE). It worked! I designed the interactive, automatic spelling-correcting user interface and the 'pretty printer' that generated human-readable output that was also immediately machine-readable. For those of you who know computer languages--you'll get a kick out of this: We programmed in CLISP, "Conversational LISP." And yes: LISP really does stand for "Lots of Irritating Single Parentheses." It was a marvelous language and foundation for a rewriting system.