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Local PRSA chapter names Simpson outstanding executive
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
President John B. Simpson received the Outstanding Executive Award at 19th annual awards dinner of the Buffalo/Niagara Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), held last week at the Buffalo Launch Club on Grand Island.
UB Believers and Buffalo Business also received Excalibur Awards recognizing excellence in public relations projects and programs throughout Western New York.
The judges for the awards competition were public relations professionals from PRSA of Central Iowa, who considered 78 entries from 20 Western New York organizations. Forty-six gold, silver and bronze Excalibur Awards were handed out, as well as awards for outstanding executive, outstanding practitioner and distinguished service.
Simpson received the Outstanding Executive Award in recognition of his support of strategic communications at UB and his commitment to making strategic public relations an important part of the university’s goals and objectives.
The UB Believers campaign received a gold Excalibur Award for community relations; Buffalo Business, the magazine of the UB School of Management, received a bronze award in the magazine category.
UB Believers is a broad-based advocacy group that has been created to help support UB and its plans to grow by 40 percent between now and the year 2020. The public relations campaign was led by Ryan McPherson, executive assistant to the vice president for external relations, and a steering committee whose UB members include Rebecca Bernstein, Vincent Clark, John DellaContrada, Jay Friedman, Connie Holoman, Mary Glenn, Suzanne Hofmann, Alan Kegler, Peter Killian, Kristen Murphy, Arthur Page, Michael Pietkiewicz, Sara Saldi, Graham Stewart and Megan Toohey.
Other contributors from UB were Cristina Batt, Jim Bisco, Jessica Biegaj, Ceci Cirincione, Kevin Eye, Tom Fadial, Becky Farnham, Hugh Jarvis, Gabe DiMaio, Douglas Levere, Jane Liebner, Cynthia Machamer, Gregory Michaelidis, Frank Napolski, Nick Peterson, Laurel Ode-Schneider, Tom Putnam, Tim Stegner, Kathy Stuber, Julie Wesolowski and Amber Winters.
Travers Collins was the university’s agency partner. Key participants from the agency were William Collins, Betsy Murrett and Melissa Betz.
Buffalo Business is edited by Jacqueline Ghosen, assistant dean and director of communications in the School of Management. Her team included editorial assistant Catherine Wilde from the School of Management and Deb Engel of Sassy Design Group.