CommPRO Editorial Staff

The Museum of Public Relations announced an expansion of its Board of Directors and a new governance structure to provide succession planning in its 25th year of operation and to deepen its contributions to the future of the public relations practice.  

The Museum is the world’s only historical repository serving the field of public relations. Through events, conferences, publications, and exhibits—online and in person—the Museum chronicles the PR practice’s past successes and failures, achievements and missteps, heroes and villains, to help shape the practice’s future not only as an instrument of commerce, but as a public good. 

Shelley and Barry Spector, co-founders of the museum, will remain President/CEO and CFO/Chief Creative Director respectively. They also announced an expanded board of directors and an executive committee. 

The board members include (listed alphabetically):

• Catherine Blades, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, SAIC

• Ben Chodor, Former President, Notified

• Ron Culp, Professional Director, Graduate PR and Advertising Program, DePaul University

• Corey duBrowa, VP Global Communications and Public Affairs, Google/Alphabet

• Mike Fernandez, SVP and Chief Communications Officer, Enbridge

• Pat Ford, Professional in Residence, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communication, and former worldwide vice chair, Burson-Marsteller

• Crystal Harrell, Senior Director Global Equaity & Inclusion Communications, Procter and Gamble 

• Lucas Bernays Held, Director of Communications, The Wallace Foundation

• Denise Hill, Ph.D., Vice President, Corporate Communications and Community Relations, Lowe's Companies, Inc.

• Bill Imada, Chairman and Chief Connectivity Officer, IW Group

• Yan Jin, Ph.D., C. Richard Yarbrough Professor in Crisis Communication Leadership and Professor of Public Relations, University of Georgia

• Dick Martin, writer on public relations and retired Chief Communications Officer, AT&T Corp.

• Amanda McGuire, Director, Global Communications, McDonald’s Corporation

• Bill Nielsen, Chairman, Advisory Board, Page Center; former Corporate Vice President, Public Affairs, Johnson & Johnson

• Barby K. Siegel, CEO, Zeno Group

• Chuck Wallington, Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Cone Health

• Teneshia Jackson Warner, Founder and CEO, EGAMI Group

• Don Wright, Harold Burson Professor in Public Relations and Chair, Department of Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations, Boston University.

Ford, Hill, and Martin, will join the Spectors on the Museum’s executive committee. Speaking for the committee, Martin said, “The steps we are taking to expand the Board, strengthen fund-raising, and bring in new, expert perspectives will all help lay the groundwork for the Museum’s stability and growth.”

“One of the most important goals of the Museum is to help increase the diversity of thought in the practice of public relations,” said Shelley Spector, Museum co-founder and CEO. “We do this through exhibits, programming, and books, all designed to give diverse professionals an historic heritage they never knew existed and to prompt the larger community of practitioners to embrace diversity as a competitive advantage.” 

The new board members will oversee committees responsible for fund-raising, educational outreach, and publishing, as well as for maintaining and growing the Museum’s collection of historical documents, oral histories, and more than 5,000 artifacts.  

Revitalized advisory boards of experts in their fields will provide counsel on the Museum’s collections, exhibits, and programming, such as its unique conference series to raise the visibility of previously marginalized “hidden figures” in public relations history. 

The Museum, founded in 1997, is a 501(c)(3) educational institution chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. The Museum showcases the work of dozens of PR pioneers—men, women, people of color, gay and straight, binary and non-binary—who helped build the profession and helped shape the course of American culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Visitors to the Museum can learn how these diverse pioneers used public relations to build businesses and to advocate for social change.