Honors & Awards

I’ve been fortunate to earn a number of honors and awards in my career, beginning with my very first job out of college.  Among those I’m most proud of – and which most tellingly reflect my capabilities are:

·        ADDY – I’ve earned two ADDY awards, one for an economic development print ad campaign designed to attract industries to South Carolina during a recession (1974-5), and another for a TV commercial promoting the obstetric services of a hospital in Macon, Georgia (1985)

·        SILVER ANVIL – The Public Relations Society of America’s high honor, for a multi-media campaign to raise awareness about document management on websites for billion-dollar multi-national market leader Documentum (2000-2001)

·        MacEACHERN – The highest award given for healthcare marketing communications – I became the only person to earn four consecutive MacEacherns (1980-1983) for a successful ongoing image-managing campaign for the Tennessee Hospital Association (a campaign that was licensed for use in seven other states, and became the basis for a campaign used by the 11-state Southeastern Hospital Conference)

·        ACCREDITATION – In 1978, I became the youngest person (at least to that time) to earn accreditation from the Public Relations Society of America.  It required a minimum of five years’ professional experience to take the test (I had five years and three weeks when I took the exam), and 80% of first-time candidates with ten years’ experience failed the test, so this was a fairly significant achievement.

·        FELLOWSHIP – In 1984, I became the first person to earn a Fellowship in Public Relations and Marketing Communications from the American Hospital Association.  To earn this, I conducted both primary and secondary research, then wrote a Masters Thesis-level Fellowship Paper on the interaction of marketing, advertising and public relations in the hospital field.

·        Some of my Other Awards and Honors

·        CABC Writer of the Year (1974)

·        National Collegiate Public Relations Design Award (1976)

·        Carolinas Hospital PR Society Wally Award (Annual Report – 1979)

AHAPRD Golden Yoyo (1982)