_Suzanne has been working in the field of Entertainment and Events for the past 19 years. Suzanne began her career at an extremely young age, producing and promoting her first solo event at the tender age of 17. After graduating from Belmont University, Suzanne went on to join Avalon Entertainment Group in Nashville, TN as one of the founding members of their Entertainment Marketing and Production division, which eventually became Warner/TBA (a Time Warner joint venture), and is currently known as TBA Global Entertainment. Suzanne was named as the youngest Vice-President in the division's history, landing as VP of Events for the Time Warner joint venture at age 27. In this role, she was in charge of overseeing all of the programs and special events produced by the division, as well as other key Time Warner initiatives. After 9 years with Warner/TBA Suzanne relocated to Atlanta, Georgia in 1999 and started Q&A Entertainment Inc., a full service Event Marketing and Production Company, which she heads today.
http://www.qandaevents.com/suz.php

_Molly, originally from Marietta, Georgia, now resides in Athens with her husband, Matthew.  The two married this past July, but wedding magazines are a constant on the coffee table.  With a background in art and design, Molly has an eye for color and passion for details.  She enjoys coming alongside brides to help them envision and enjoy their dream day.  She believes a wedding should be a reflection of the bride and groom – the most beautiful weddings are personal.  Even with a large number attending, a wedding has the ability to feel intimate with a little creativity.  With experience in the catering and invitation industries, jewelry design, and photography, Molly is knowledgeable about much of the “wedding world.”  On the day of the wedding, her calm, friendly demeanor is a wonderful relief to her brides.  She is your advocate on your special day, because  your wedding day should be the best day of your lives!
http://www.ccharmweddings.com/mollymckinley/

Telleen graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree, double major, in international affairs and Spanish. She is active in the Boys and Girls Club of Atlanta's young professionals group, Club Blue, where she is a member of the communications team. She also enjoys volunteering for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Telleen began her career working for the State of Georgia's governor in the press office and discovered her love for all things communications. After her internship, Telleen worked briefly at Hewlett-Packard as a commercial account manager. Realizing communications was her passion, she set out to find her way back into public relations. She joined c21 as an intern where she worked on numerous projects ranging from media relations and social media to e-mail marketing, media list development and more.

Telleen graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree, double major, in international affairs and Spanish. She is active in the Boys and Girls Club of Atlanta's young professionals group, Club Blue, where she is a member of the communications team. She also enjoys volunteering for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

_Karla works to develop special events, marketing strategies and media relations tactics for a variety of industries, including nonprofit, real estate, sports and technology.

Karla comes to c21 from the Atlanta Humane Society where she managed the nonprofit organization’s fundraising events, media relations and social media. In tough economic times, Karla triumphantly exceeded the fundraising goals for the shelter’s largest annual event--the Pet Parade. She also founded the organization’s successful sponsored pet program, company blog and internship initiative.


Karla graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in marketing. She is an active volunteer and foster parent for several animal rescue groups and also dedicates time each month to the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

Rob Baskin has more than 35 years of public relations experience, including a 15-year tenure at The Coca-Cola Company where he was director of corporate communications, director of public relations, and director of marketing communications.

His agency career includes tenures as managing director of the southeastern offices of three international public relations firms, Cohn & Wolfe, Manning Selvage & Lee, and his current position as Atlanta president of Weber Shandwick, the world’s leading PR firm.

He specializes in corporate and issues management, crisis communications, and corporate communications, media relations,  media training, and providing communications strategy and support for client litigation, including class action lawsuits and labor disputes.  

Baskin has counseled the CEOs of The Coca-Cola Company, the Home Depot, Equifax, Spectrum Brands, United Way, Emory University, Northside Hospital, Old Dominion Freight Lines, the Atlanta Police Department, the CDC Foundation, the Atlanta Public Schools,  AFLAC, Carter’s, Philips Electronics, and Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores.

His crisis and issues communications work encompasses employee class action lawsuits; product contamination, tampering, and recalls; investigations by the EEOC, FDA and SEC; racial, gender and sexual orientation discrimination allegations; environmental issues; mergers & acquisitions; community relations;  public affairs; and CEO transitions/leadership succession.

His consumer public relations work includes both client and agency-side management of more than 25 product introductions for Coca-Cola, Philips Electronics, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Ciba Vision and Hasbro.

In addition,  Baskin led Coca-Cola’s public relations strategy and PR activation for nine Olympic Games (1984-2002), as well as Coke’s other major sports sponsorships, including the NFL, NBA, NHL and NCAA.

Baskin earned a BA in political science and and an MA in journalism from The Ohio State University. He serves on the Boards of Trustees of the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Georgia Council on Economic Education, the SafeAmerica Foundation, and the Georgia Center for Non-Profits. He formerly served on the Boards of the Georgia Alliance for Children, the Horizon Theater, the Atlanta Sports Council and the Atlanta Tip-Off Club.  

Mai-Lise Nguyen is group manager in the healthcare practice at Weber Shandwick, a leading global public relations agency with offices in 74 countries around the world. Nguyen joined Weber Shandwick in 2006 and has extensive communications experience with Food and Drug Administration approvals, advisory committees, data announcements, issues management and medical meetings. She also leads public relations activities and health awareness campaigns.

Prior to Weber Shandwick, she worked in employment marketing at The Home Depot headquarters in Atlanta and interned in healthcare public relations at Burson-Marsteller in New York.

Nguyen is a member of the Terry College’s Young Alumni Board, and she is also a past LAGRANT Foundation Scholar and current scholarship reviewer.

Courtney is the Human Resources Generalist and she manages the myriad of details associated with employee recruitment, retention and benefits. Her training and experience are ideally suited to Jackson Spalding as she brings a combination of corporate communications, customer relations and HR expertise to their team.

She spent three years at Ryla, Inc. a call-center solutions provider with more than 2,500 employees and seven offices in five states. During her tenure at Ryla, she served as an HR leader in the areas of Recruitment, Employee Relations and HR Administration and was directly responsible for providing HR support to more than 700 employees. Previously she was an Educational Recruiter at ITT Technical Institute and a Customer Service Coordinator at Verizon Wireless.

Courtney originally planned to pursue a career in public relations and earned a bachelor's degree in Corporate Communications from the College of Charleston in 2002. During her studies she took a class on employment law, and quickly developed a passion for learning more about the relationship between employers and employees. She returned to the classroom the following year, obtaining a master's degree in Human Resources Development from Webster University in Columbia, S.C.

A native of Barnwell, S.C., Courtney now lives in Forest Park, Ga. with her husband, Alphonso. She is a lifelong cheerleader and shares his passion for football, especially The Atlanta Falcons. When it comes to volunteering, Courtney never misses The March of Dimes Walk, a step she takes to give thanks for the love and care she received years ago as a premature baby.

Leslie Emanuele Thompson joined three, an Atlanta-based integrated marketing agency, in November 2010 to handle internal and external communication strategies. Leslie generates consumer and trade media relations for clients in the consumer goods and professional services categories and manages three’s internship program.
 
Prior to three, Leslie was on Cookerly Public Relations’ issues management team, focusing primarily on community relations. She also served as the agency’s in-house designer.

Leslie graduated from the University of Georgia in May 2009 with dual degrees in public relations and sociology. While there, she was selected as Precedent Editor for PRSSA Executive Board (2009), the National Bateman Case Study Competition team (2009), PRSSA Member of the Year (2008-2009) and PRSSA National Gold Key Award (2009, one of 20 chosen nationally).
 
Outside of the office, Leslie can be found remodeling her new house with her husband, snuggling with her pug Lola or curling up with a hot cup of coffee and a good book.

Christina Schrempp is a fifth-year senior at the University of Georgia graduating in December 2011 with a double major in PR and English. 

In June 2011, Christina joined the three team as a summer PR intern. The nature of her internship and the fluidity of the company allowed her the opportunity to work on a variety of projects that spanned the gamut between public relations and advertising. Her work included media relations, PR writing, corporate event planning, an internal PR social media campaign, new business research, and branding and strategy.

Born and raised in New Orleans, LA among a slew of hardcore LSU Tiger fans, Christina is a proud UGA Bulldog fan and has loved every minute of her time here in Athens. On campus, she can be found working fervently to help pull together ADPR Connection 2011 as the Host & Registration Assistant Committee Head, or simply enjoying her last semester as a Bulldog. 

Marian Higgins is the Associate Director of Diversity Programs and the Career Consultant for the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has been a part of the UGA Career Center since 2004.  She graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut with a Bachelor of Arts in History and received her Master of Science in Counseling at the University of Memphis. Currently, she is completing her PhD in Student Affairs Administration at UGA.

Follow the Career Center: @UGACareerCenter

Debra Lassiter founded Perfectly Polished in 1985 out of a desire and commitment to make respect and courtesy the standard for young people in northeast Georgia. Today, the program has more than 1,250 currently enrolled students, and thousands of graduates.

Ms. Lassiter is an expert in the business etiquette field. In addition to her certification by the Protocol School of Washington, Washington, D.C., she has trained with the Steven Covey organization. Currently, she presents and facilitates business etiquette programs for corporations and state organizations through her work with the Etiquette & Leadership Institute, a program she founded in September 2005 with Cindy Haygood and April McLean when they acquired the Children's Training Division of the Protocol School of Washington.

To find out more, check out the Perfectly Polished Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Perfectly-Polished/49239931689

Brad Dodge is the president and CEO of Dodge Communications, a full-service integrated public relations and marketing agency helping healthcare and technology companies build strong brands, demonstrate thought leadership and drive sales. He began his career selling practice management systems to physician practices in the early 1980s and has held positions in sales management, product management, corporate marketing and advertising. Dodge has worked with more than 90 organizations that sell products and services to the healthcare industry.

twitter.com/braddodge
www.dodgecommunications.com/blog
www.dodgecommunications.com

A 2010 graduate of UGA’s Grady College, today Kaitlyn spends her days diving into the digital world of marketing as a digital strategist at Engauge, a full service advertising agency in Atlanta, GA where she works with clients such as Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola and Coffee-mate, to name a few. Prior to joining Engauge in the fall of 2010, Kaitlyn served as an intern and later social media analyst for the Coca-Cola Company. During her time at Grady, Kaitlyn was a member of PRSSA, creative consultants and served on the executive board for UGA HEROs. In her spare time today, Kaitlyn can be found training for her first half-marathon, blogging or attempting to find a replacement for her love of The Last Resort in the Atlanta restaurant mix. 

Twitter.com/KaitlynDennihy
Blog.KaitlynDennihy.com
Engauge.com

Sydney Carroll is a communications representative at Lockheed Martin in Ft. Worth, Texas, where she works on branding, marketing and trade shows.  Her responsibilities include trade show communications, collateral development, advertising and new media communications.

Sydney is a 2008 PR graduate of UGA, a former PRSSA e-board member and Bateman Team member.  At our next meeting, Sydney will present Lockheed's Communications Leadership Development Program (CLDP) for December 2011 and May 2012 graduates.  Through Lockheed's CLDP, two to five communicators from universities across the country join the team each year.  Those selected complete two one-year rotations at two different Lockheed Martin offices. 

Lockheed's CLDPs are NOT interns—they are full-time communicators with competitive pay and benefits.  CLDP rotations concentrate on external communications (media relations and marketing communications) and internal communications (community relations and employee communications).  Professional enrichment opportunities throughout the program include business area and corporate conferences to help build a cross-business network of contacts. 

Lockheed is looking for individuals with related degrees (e.g. journalism, public relations, communications), strong academic performance, excellent writing skills, prior work or internship experience, and demonstrated leadership in communications (e.g. a leadership role in an organization like PRSSA). UGA students have been quite successful in this program.  For nearly every year in the past 10, at least one of our students has been chosen for this life-changing opportunity.

For more information about Lockheed and CLDP, contact Sydney at sydney.m.carroll@lmco.com or visit lockheedmartin.com.  The application process includes a cover letter, resume and two writing samples.  If this sounds like an exciting opportunity, or if you want to hear more about corporate PR, you won't want to miss Sydney's presentation on Wednesday, September 28.