Public relations professionals are tasked with consulting, advocating, planning, strategizing, evaluating, and above all, communicating. In an industry with a highly competitive job market, it is understood that those who ascend the corporate ladder or manage their own business are models of success. The following UREP professionals have not only triumphed in practice, but they did so as the first or only in their respective multicultural communities.
Mike Fernandez
Mike Fernandez, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, Communications, and Sustainability and Chief Communications Officer (CCO) for energy delivery company Enbridge, is an award-winning, internationally recognized public relations executive. His incomparable work ethic and analytic insight have been lauded by industry and the academy.
Growing up, Fernandez lived in several states due to his father’s career with the Army Airforce Exchange Service. Residing in places like New Mexico, Texas, and South Carolina, and as the child of a white mother and a Puerto Rican and Cuban father, he grew up immersed in and appreciative of many cultures. After every move, his mother’s first act of acclimating him and his younger sister to the new area was to get library cards. Fernandez fondly remembers visiting the local library every Saturday. Books were their escape and offered a window outside of their world.
Fernandez excelled in both athletics and academics in high school. He was a South Carolina state debate champion, newspaper staffer, and football star. He was recruited to play college football, but decided to capitalize on his interest in politics and enrolled in Georgetown University.
Accepted into the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, Fernandez gained invaluable experience on Capitol Hill working with the House Democratic Study Group, a legislative service organization. In this position, he researched and wrote policy papers about upcoming legislation, and more specifically, examined the re-establishment of the Federal Election Commission and the landmark Supreme Court case Buckley v Valeo. His exemplary performance with the group led to his work on democratic congressional and gubernatorial campaigns post-Watergate. Fernandez identified and analyzed the voting pattern shifts in congressional districts for more than 40 campaigns. This experience led to him being the youngest press secretary in the U.S. Senate when he joined the staff of South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings in 1980.
After his time in Congress, he began a storied career in public relations. In 1996, he became the first U.S.-born Latino CCO for a Fortune 500 company. At the time, U.S. West CEO Sol Trujillo, a Mexican American executive, took keen interest in creating and maintaining a diverse work environment and extended this expectation to his employees.
Fernandez has since served as the CCO for four other major U.S. corporations—Cargill, State Farm, ConAgra Foods, and Cigna. He has been honored widely for his work in global communications, finance, technology, and agricultural industries, among others. In 2015, Fernandez was the first recipient of the Hispanic Public Relations Association’s (HPRA’s) National Pioneer of the Year Award and accepted the Alexander Hamilton Medal for major lifetime contributions to the practice of public relations from the Institute for Public Relations. He was named the 2016 Paladin Honoree by the PRSA Foundation, listed as one of top 100 public relations professionals in the world by Holmes Report’s and on PRWeek’s Power List of the top 50 public relations professionals in the United States.
David M. Garcia
David Garcia led the grassroots efforts that, in 1984, created Los Angeles’ first organization dedicated to the advancement of Latino public relations professionals: the Hispanic Public Relations Association. He served as the steering committee chair and later as the founding president. HPRA has since become the largest professional association of its kind in the country, with chapters in Florida, New York, Texas, and North and South Carolina, and a collegiate chapter at the University of Florida.
Inspired by a nascent interest in journalism, the Los Angeles County native joined his high-school’s yearbook staff, serving first as an assistant editor and, during his senior year, as an editor. After graduating from what was then an all-boys Catholic high school, he was accepted into the University of Southern California (USC) School of Journalism.
His career plans took a turn in 1976, when the academy award-winning film, “All the President’s Men,” was released. Based on the bestselling book and Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage by Washington Post investigative reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, it sparked a surge in journalism school enrollment. Garcia anticipated the glut of journalism graduates it would create two years later, just as he was set to enter the job market. He switched to another major where his journalistic skills could still be applied: public relations.
At USC, Garcia was active in its Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter and was a member of its national case study championship team. In recognition of his service as the director of the USC Student News Bureau, he was inducted into the all-university honor society, Skull and Dagger.
His more-than-40-year career includes a broad range of public relations, media relations, corporate communication, and organizational communication experience in the banking, energy, health care, public relations agency/consulting, and newspaper industries. He has represented several leading blue-chip organizations, including Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, and the Los Angeles Times. At the Times, he managed publicity and media relations efforts promoting the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage, its nationally recognized book festival, and its sponsorship of numerous mayoral, gubernatorial, and presidential primary debates and other civic initiatives.
In 2013, Garcia launched an independent public relations practice, DMG Communications. An advocate of solo practitioners, he chaired the Independent Practitioners Alliance and served on the board of PRSA’s Los Angeles chapter and as West Coast liaison and executive committee member of PRSA’s national Independent Practitioners Alliance.
His advice to young professionals: “If you always ask why and always do the right thing, everyone wins” (D. Garcia, personal communication, December 29, 2020).
Bill Imada
Bill Imada is the Chief Connectivity Officer for IM Group, an advertising, marketing, and communications agency he founded in 1990. Imada is widely admired for his passion for creating access for underrepresented groups and for celebrating multiculturalism and the diversity of ideas.
Born in Eastern Oregon and raised in Los Angeles, Imada was introduced to activism and social justice in high school, where the typically shy, reserved boy became more extroverted and found his voice. Outside of his school activities, he wrote for a left of center, underground publication, and volunteered for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The latter gave him peripheral experience with the justice system as a process server. He delivered legal documents on behalf of the ACLU, notably serving papers to Southern California area high-school principals after students claimed their First Amendment rights were violated.
Imada became more directly involved in politics when he campaigned for and was elected as the California State University, Northridge Associated Students president. As the chief student advocate, he used his platform to strengthen the relationship between the campus and surrounding community. His experience in undergrad foreshadowed his career and lifelong mandate of helping others.
After receiving a significant monetary investment to start his own company, Imada took a keen interest in philanthropy. His benefactor challenged Imada to pay the generosity forward and help 100 people. He has since surpassed 1,000 and now aims to help one million. One way he has fulfilled this charge is by proactively founding organizations to improve representation and engagement of underrepresented groups. The National Millennial Community promotes cross-generational understanding of millennials and Generation Z. Along with other Asian American business executives and community leaders, he established the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (now APIA Scholars) and the Asian/Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce & Entrepreneurship, a national organization aimed at improving the social, economic, and political standing of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders. He was also instrumental in the founding of the LeGrant Foundation, which has provided scholarships, professional develop-ment workshops, and mentoring to undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in pursuing careers advertising, marketing, and public relations.
Imada’s business and relationship acumen have been sought by renown communication and media-related organizations. He sits on the board of directors for several foundations whose missions align with his own, including the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and Advertising Educational Foundation (AEF). A former member of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, he was appointed to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders by Barack Obama and remained a year under Donald J. Trump.
In business, Imada strives to propel multicultural markets through accurate representation. He has worked steadily toward equitable representation professionally and personally and prefers to not lump communities under one label, shunning phrases such as BiPoc or People of Color, rather educating the importance of recognizing all identities.
Lycia Maddocks
Lycia Maddocks is a rising star in Native American and U.S. government relations. As political director for NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power, she is a political and communications strategist that leads campaigns and movements to advance the political power of Native American people. Throughout her career, she has educated non-Native Americans of the richness and diversity of Indigenous culture, empowered tribal nations to build communication infrastructures, and continues to seek equity in all arenas.
A citizen of the Quechan Indian Nation and a member of the Turtle Clan, Maddocks was raised in a diverse environment. The Fort Yuma Indian Reservation where she resided borders Arizona, California, and Mexico, and she attended school with tribal children and non-Native Americans. She remembers her schools offering space in its curriculum for Native American traditions and gave reverence to customs, but she also notes not all interactions were culturally sensitive. Teachers who were not from the area revealed their unfamiliarity with the community and used terms like “let’s have a pow-wow” to relate to students.
In high school, Maddocks grew interested in film and video production, and after graduation, moved to Florida to receive an Associate’s degree in the discipline. She returned to California to work in the film industry and was introduced to public relations functions while working as a production manager for a company that promoted priorities of tribal nations. With a growing interest in the communication tasks of her job, she was compelled to pursue a degree in business communication at Loyola University in Chicago.
While in Chicago, Maddocks worked in corporate America until the Quechan Indian Nation called and offered her a position to promote its new casino resort. Returning home as the inaugural marketing and public relations lead, Maddocks established communication policies while educating the general public on the nuances of tribal culture. One such encounter was with the U.S. Army, with whom she orchestrated the repatriation of her tribal nation’s artifacts for display in a cultural center—her first of many successful government-to-government interactions. She was soon recruited to work in marketing and public relations for another tribe in the Palm Springs area, and her flourishing career in governmental relations was solidified.
Maddocks received her law degree in Indigenous People’s Law at the University of Oklahoma School of Law before working as the first-ever Vice President of External Affairs for the National Congress of American Indians, where she was the national spokesperson for the more than 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Her career path has provided the opportunity to dispel many misconceptions non-Native Americans have about American Indian and Alaska Native people, one being that tribal citizenship reflects race, when in actuality, it is a political status. She also distinguishes Native Americans from other ethnic minority groups in the United States, as they have dual citizenship—belonging to tribal nations as well as a citizen of the United States.
No matter her role, Maddocks is intentional about celebrating and observing the difference in dialects, traditions, housing, and language, among other cultural elements of Indian Country.
Debra A. Miller
Dr. Debra A. Miller, the first woman of color president of the PRSA, has excelled in a career of over 30 years as both an educator and communication professional. Her training in multicultural public relations practices has provided organizations with tools to diversify internally as well as effectively target various external publics.
Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Miller was exposed to social justice activities at an early age. Her family participated in civil rights demonstrations around the city, and at the age of nine, she met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She, her sister, and a small number of other Black students integrated the Cathedral Catholic Grade school. It was there where she learned the transformative and persuasive power of words, and that she had a voice. After completing an assignment to write “Why I Must Have Self Control” to calm an unruly class, Miller chose to write about “Why She Had Self Control.” Members of the class may have been unruly, but she was not. Her elderly white teacher said that the essay was perfectly written, but she thought it was disrespectful that this little “colored girl” did not do as she was told. Miller was expelled from the school.
While in junior high school, Miller developed a fondness for Star Trek character, Communications Officer Lt. Nyota Uhura, which cemented her passion for communications. After all, the setting for the show was in the future and Lt. Uhura (an African American woman) was an indispensable part of the ship’s leadership team as they explored galaxies and civilizations far, far away.
In high school, Miller advocated on behalf of the students of color by questioning policy and traditional practices as it related to curriculum, school entertainment, and athletics at the predominantly white Bishop England Catholic High School. She hosted a radio show on WPAL and periodically wrote a column for the Charleston daily newspaper, The Post and Courier. Her experience with these platforms afforded her an understanding of mass media influence and briefly inspired her to become an attorney for the Federal Communications Commission. It was at that time Miller adopted the inspiring words of Dr. Maya Angelou as her personal and later professional mantra. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Following high school, Miller continued her family’s legacy of attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and enrolled in Hampton University where she had work–study and internship positions at the City of Hampton promoting Sesame Street and The Electric Company, learning centers for disadvantaged youth, NASA Langley Research Center, and WCSC-TV 5 News in Charleston, SC. That experience along with her fondness for public relations helped her chart a new career path. The profession offered her a chance to share her unique perspective and use communications to change behavior.
Miller’s expansive career spans across several industries, to include higher education, health care, financial services, consumer products, professional services, and federal and municipal government. She was Assistant Dean and tenured Associate Professor at Florida International University School of Communications. She has held communication executive roles at Advocate Aurora Health Care, Wisconsin’s largest health care system; Bank of America; Quarles and Brady, LLP (an AmLaw 200 law firm); federal (Department of Agriculture, U.S. Census Bureau, Department of the Treasury, and Department of the Army) and municipal agencies; several public and private universities, as well as clients that represent and market some of the world’s best-known brands (Capital One Financial Services, Walmart, Delta Airlines, Levi Strauss Canada, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Astra Zeneca, and Shell Oil).
Currently, this award-winning leader in strategic communication and public relations management is the Director of Communications for Cone Health, the preeminent health care system in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, and Chief Strategy Consultant at her firm, Global Communications Strategists, Inc.
A pivotal point in Miller’s personal and professional life came when she was elected the PRSA President in 1997. Described as a “pinnacle” moment in her career (D. Miller, personal communication, January 6, 2021), the road to her presidency was unprecedented and controversial. As a member of the PRSA Minority Affairs Committee, Miller understood that in order to influence change, the ranks must be expanded to include a more diverse leadership, and with fellow committee members, coordinated a campaign to make PRSA leadership more inclusive. After serving on the Board of Directors for two years and being elected Board Secretary, she failed to receive a nomination for Treasurer, Miller and the committee reviewed PRSA bylaws and found that nominations could take place from the floor. The committee strategically identified members to speak on her behalf before the 350+ member assembly, and triumphantly, she won the position. A remarkable feat, the election to Treasurer placed her on the leadership track to become President. Miller notes that she did not achieve this accomplishment alone. Her election “was a testament to the ability of my diverse colleagues to leverage the power of strategy and tactics to influence the assembly and change the face of PRSA leadership” (2021).
In addition to the PRSA presidency, Miller’s contribution to the discipline has been acknowledged by various entities. In 2006, she was the first woman of color to receive PRSA’s Gold Anvil Award, and she is recognized as a “PR Legend” by The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, as well as the PRSSA. Under her leadership, PRSA’s Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter received the 2018 and 2019 National Diversity Award. In 2018, Miller received the prestigious Dorothy M. Black Award from the chapter for superior performance in public relations. In 2015, she led the team that won the Legal Marketing Association’s First Place “Total Website” award. Miller was inducted into Hampton University’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications (SHSJC) Hall of Fame in 2012, where she was recognized for her outstanding professional accomplishments and servant leadership. She continues to contribute to the field as a thought leader who shares her time, talent, and wisdom in interviews, lectures, conference presentations, writing, and mentoring students and young professionals.
Collin Price, founder of the Tribal Nations Public Relations Conference, is an innovative and results-driven communications expert whose vision has advanced intercultural collaborations among Native and non-Native Americans. His approach of educating his audience has proven to raise awareness of cultural heritage.
A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, a federally recognized tribe of more than 8,000, Price was raised in Tomah, Wisconsin. He earned a degree in sociology with an emphasis in criminology from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and began his career in law enforcement, following his father’s footsteps as a highway patrolman. In that position, he recognized the power of effective communication. “Communication skills kept me safe, allowed me to relate to people and have empathy and gave me the ability to persuade people through dialogue” (C. Price, January 22, 2021). After spending five years in that role, Price left to accept a position with his tribe as a public relations officer of the Ho-Chunk Nation Office of the President. At that time, he was the youngest member of the tribe’s leadership team and found the skills he employed as a trooper transferred well to his responsibilities in social media management, government relations, and event planning.
Price surmised that education was the most impactful way to communicate cultural insensitivity and relevancy to non-Native Americans. This approach involved dispelling the misconception of tribal independence. He notes that he often must explain Indian Country’s—term used to describe Native American communities within the United States—willingness to partner with outside groups.
Knowing that he could educate more proactively as a separate entity, Price entertained his entrepreneurial desire and founded his own public relations firm, B-Team Strategy. The consultancy aims to assist in building relationships and trust between tribes and corporations through community engagement, business development, and diversity and inclusion initiatives.
The goal for the Tribal Nations Public Relations Conference is to offer comprehensive training for professionals charged with communicating with and within tribal nations. Price saw a need to introduce a vibrant, technology-driven event for professional development as opposed to the traditional, segmented environment. The 125 registrants at the 2019 inaugural conference attended sessions on creative solutions to sports communication, media relations, and social media, among several other topics. While planning for the 2020 conference experienced an interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, networking remained consistent throughout the year. Price is hopeful that it will become an annual, in-person event.
An emerging leader, Price has been recognized as a 2016 Rising Star Under 40, “a regional program designed to recognize talented young professionals and community leaders, celebrate their achievements and encourage them to remain in the 14-county region” (Hailey, 2020). The honor is sponsored by local media and receives nominations for young leaders who work in western Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota, and northeast Iowa. Price was one of 19 honorees selected among more than 100 applications.
Helen Shelton
Communication strategist Helen Shelton is an accomplished truth-teller, change agent, and champion for DE and I in the public relations workplace. Her consultation on various campaigns has resulted in a transformative connection of corporate philanthropy to underserved communities.
A native of Harlem, NY, Shelton was exposed to cultural relevance at an early age. She spent much of her childhood visiting museums; reading at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, where her mother was a librarian; and attending the Harlem School of the Arts, where she received dancing, guitar, and acting lessons. This rich foundation in the humanities piqued her interest to study art history at Dartmouth University.
While completing her undergraduate studies, she was recruited to Boston University’s communication graduate program and was awarded a full scholarship from RKO General, now GenCorp. In addition to the funding, the diversified technology-based company placed her as an intern with the Legendary KISS FM radio station in New York. There, Shelton received direct access to entertainers, marketing executives, and other prominent figures in media.
Shelton has crafted campaigns for city government, entertainment, and health care industries. In every position, she always ensured that programming and initiatives were inclusive of groups and messages were accurate. She was part of the team that planned the opening of the Getty Center, a billion-dollar Los Angeles-based visual arts institute, and used the opportunity to redefine the definition of a VIP. “We made sure there was representation. All media groups were invited to participate and the first guests of the museum were school children from East L.A.” (H. Shelton, personal communication, January 12, 2021).
She employed responsible communication by redirecting Seagram’s marketing to Black communities to include voter registration, adult education, housing, literacy, and anti-hunger initiatives. Her execution of the “Believe in Healthy BP” campaign for hypertension awareness garnered her the PR Week Award for Multicultural Marketing Campaign of the Year.
Mentored by public relations pioneer and founder of global communications agency Ruder Finn, Inc., David Finn, Shelton was the youngest, first, and only African American to have an executive vice president title in her division. In 2021, she was appointed as Finn Partners’ first Global Chief Diversity Officer. In this role she directs the agency’s diversity and inclusion program, Actions Speak Louder, where among many responsibilities, she maintains a robust pipeline of talented diverse junior associates.
With an appreciation and understanding of the necessity for representation, Shelton always encourages colleagues to view campaigns and messaging through a multicultural lens. Her keen insight has been celebrated by several entities. She received the Global Vision Award from BCAGlobal, was named one of the 25 Most Influential Black Women in Business by The Network Journal magazine, and was the recipient of the 2016 Circle Award for Excellence in Communications, the only award honoring women of color in communications.
Patrice Tanaka
Multifaceted public relations executive Patrice Tanaka has enjoyed a robust career where empowering others is central to her success. As the cofounder of three award-winning public relations agencies, Tanaka has continued to prove that the most important assets of an organization are its employees.
Tanaka’s interest in communications was sparked when she enrolled in Newswriting 101 at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. The course, coupled with heightened national interest in investigative journalism due to the Watergate scandal, prompted her to shift her major in English to journalism. She honed her writing skills as a member of the university’s newspaper staff and by working for a local Japanese-English daily where she interviewed local Japanese American celebrities for front page feature stories.
Her early love for black and white films with glamourous backdrops of Manhattan inspired her to want to live there; after graduation and working as Director of Public Relations for a hotel on Maui, she moved to New York to join public relations firm Jessica Dee Communications, which she helped build over the next seven years. The company was acquired by the creative advertising agency, Chiat/Da. Three years later, Tanaka led a group of 12 colleagues in a management buyback rather than laying off several people when their biggest client left the agency. She and her 12 cofounders created PT&Co., as an employee-owned PR agency.
PT&Co. was the first of three employee-owned firms that Tanaka helped cofound. She cultivated an environment where employees could bring their “whole selves” to work. She explains this as the state “where you are the most comfortable,” when you can bring all of you—“personality, quirks and passions”—to problem-solving, creative brainstorming, and strategic planning (P. Tanaka, personal communication, December 28, 2020). Tanaka’s open-office was designed to accommodate and honor the needs of the whole person, and included a living room, eat-in kitchen, and meditation room. The environment proved to be fruitful. PT&Co. was ranked by Inside PR magazine as the number one most creative and the number two best workplace among all public relations agencies in the country. The agency was recognized with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement SABRE award for its “Women’s Work,” campaign with retailer Liz Claiborne to bring awareness to the public health crisis of domestic violence and support for its victims.
Tanaka later sold PT&Co. to Richmond, Va.-based Carter Ryley Thomas to form CRT/tanaka. The new agency was ranked among the top three advertising, marketing, and PR firms by BizSense, and listed DelMonte, Sprint, and Wines from Rioja as clients. Eight years later, CRT/tanaka sold to Minneapolis-based Padilla Speer Beardsley to create PadillaCRT, now Padilla, to create one of the “top 10” largest, independent PR agencies in the country and the largest employee-owned PR and marketing agency with 240 employee-owners. The agency won PR Daily’s inaugural Nonprofit PR Award for its work on the Girl Scouts of the USA’s campaign, “National Girl Cookie Day.”
After the tragic events of the 9/11, Tanaka focused on creating joy in her life and in the lives of others. She pursued a long-time love for ballroom dancing, and in 2011, wrote, Becoming Ginger Rogers: How Ballroom Dancing Made Me a Happier Woman, Better Partner and Smarter CEO.
Currently, Tanaka is the Chief Joy Officer for Joyful Planet LLC, a business and life strategy consultancy she founded to help individuals and organizations discover and live or “operationalize” their purpose to unleash greater success, fulfillment and joy in their personal lives, workplaces, and communities.
Various organizations have recognized Tanaka’s ingenuity, creativity, and business acumen. In 2016, she was inducted into the PRWeek Hall of Fame, and received the PRSA Foundation’s 2017 Paladin Award, given to the public relations professional “who has made an indelible impact of the community, particularly in the struggle to open doors of diversity and inclusion for the next generation of public relations leaders” (PRSA Foundation n.d.); and was honored by her alma mater with the Distinguished Alumni Award. Most recently, she was named a 2021 Gold Achievement Gala Honoree by the Girl Scouts of Greater New York.
Summary
This mix of professionals, at various stages of their careers and representing different ethnicities, are all bonded by their expertise in communication, strategic planning, message crafting, internal and external relations, and a variety of other public relations components. Their professional contributions illustrate the depth and breadth of public relations and the necessity for up-and-coming professionals to emulate their work.
The next chapter profiles public relations educators—those who have written extensively and are highly sought-after leaders of intellectual discourse. Their passion for public relations scholarship and pedagogy is reflected in their many credentials, honors, and success of their pupils.