It’s a new year and with that comes a new president of the Chicago chapter PRSA board. I’m Gini Dietrich and I am the president and founder of Arment Dietrich, Inc. I’ve served the Chicago chapter of PRSA, in some capacity, for six years now. I started out on the volunteer committee and then took over Skyline responsibilities. Some of you might remember me as one of the emcees of the Skyline event last year; I was on crutches because I’d broken my foot when a rouge TV fell on it during a satellite media tour. It’s a dangerous job we have!
I’m really excited about the year ahead and have several goals (probably too many) to make this organization even better and serve all levels of members. One of my first goals was to fill empty board spots. We nominated and elected three new board members – Shawn Kahle (Merchandise Mart), Herb Ritchell (Loyola University), and Scott Farrell (GolinHarris). These three join the already esteemed board who are all dedicated to helping take this organization to the next level.
I’m also really excited to introduce some very strong committee chairs:
- Courtney Hill (Hill & Knowlton) and last year’s PRSA Young Professional of the Year is going to help us put together workshops on the business of running a PR firm (for those of us who have to read P&Ls but would rather manage media);
- Virginia Mann (Topco Associates) is going to help Herb Ritchell with PRSSA and bring the next generation of the brightest and best talent to our organizations and our companies;
- Edward Bury, APR (CCIM Institute) is going to help Rick Aspan (Andrew Corporation) with APR and is going to market the benefits of being certified in our profession;
- Jenny Keeney (Fleishman-Hillard) and Mike Banas (Ashton Partners) are taking the YPN reigns from Kristine Kappel (Chicago Cares) as she moves into a leadership role as treasurer this year; and
- Laura Kennedy and Kristin Shorkey (both of Red Chicago) are going to lead the social committee, taking over for Stephanie Krol (SKPR) which means they’re in charge of the social outings and Skyline.
I’d also like to thank Mike McGrath (Financial Dynamics) and Rebecca Theim (freelancer) for stepping up to the plate to help me as president-elect and vice president, respectively.
So the goals! I’m putting this on paper so each of you can hold me accountable and so we can see what we achieved by this time next year.
- Create monthly senior-level workshops that are focused on issues, concerns and tips for PR practitioners who have a minimum of 10 years of experience.
- Create quarterly “how to run the business” workshops to discuss budget management, utilization reports, P&Ls, projections and other accounting things they don’t teach us in liberal arts school, but are required to know as we move up the ladder.
- Become even more involved with the Illinois PRSSA chapters; offer scholarships, teach workshops, host career shadows, recruit talent, provide internships, and anything else the committee decides to do.
- Provide a venue for marketing APR and the benefits of being certified.
- Help the YPN committee move social attendees to members and then to volunteer positions on the board.
- Continue doing what we do really well – social events and monthly workshops!
I’d love your comments on how we’re doing as a board and what we can do differently. Please e-mail me at prsachicago@armentdietrich.com.
