Brand New Day

This month marks the end of a era, as well as the beginning of a new one, for members of the Public Relations Society of America in Oregon and Southwest Washington. The organization’s national board approved the merger of the state’s three chapters -- Portland Metro, Oregon Capital and Greater Oregon -- into one: PRSA Oregon.

Over the past several years, the two smaller chapters based in Salem and Eugene-Springfield have experienced governance challenges to varying degrees. As a result, volunteer leadership has grown increasingly concerned with the sustainability of programs and services for members across the state due to these challenges.

So last December, the boards of the three chapters formed a limited duration joint task force known as the Oregon Statewide Governance Committee to formally investigate whether our collective governance challenges would be solved by merging into one statewide chapter, thus sharing the workload and increasing member value.

The PRSA Greater Oregon Chapter dates back to its genesis in the late 1980s. Previously, communications professionals in the Eugene-Springfield area were part of a loose confederation known as the PR Roundtable. Thanks to the leadership efforts of Liz Cawood, APR, this group morphed into the PRSA Greater Oregon Chapter in 1990.

A founding member of the group, I joined the board of the PRSA Greater Oregon Chapter and became professional advisor to the University of Oregon chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, and have now served in both of those roles for over two decades.

In that time, I’ve worked with the best in the profession (you know who you are) since my transition from newspaper reporter to PR practitioner. Besides my colleagues in Oregon, my cheeky comrades from PRSA North Pacific District continue to reach new levels of notoriety at national conference (again, you know who you are).

As a PRSSA advisor, I’ve thoroughly valued working with my student teams (featured throughout this post). My hope is they have learned as much from me as I have from all of them. As per my role in PRSA, I will continue in a new position on the board of PRSA Oregon as leadership assembly delegate. I know. What were they thinking?