Bryon Riesch

On October 17, our P.R. tactics class had the privilege of hosting a very influential guest speaker, Bryon Riesch.  Bryon is an advocate for people with disabilities and handicaps, and is very passionate about his work since it deals with an issue that is so close to home for himself. 

Bryon was 19 years old, a freshmen at Marquette University at a friend's party when his life changed forever.  Bryon and a group of his friends were outside playing with a slip and slide having a good time and challenging another to see who could slide the farthest.  Being a very competitive and determined young individual Bryon accepted the challenge and when it was his chance took his best shot at sliding the farthest down the slide.  However, when he landed he ended up breaking his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. 

Bryon spent 3 months in the hospital and endured countless hours of rehabilitation therapy before he gained the courage to go back to Marquette University to continue his education.  There he realized the challenges and obstacles that he would have to overcome just to make it through a full school day. 

By recognizing his own difficulties and how hard it was for people in his life to adjust to his disability, Bryon was determined to not let his handicap keep him from having an impact on the world. 

He realized that he still had potential to make a significant influence on people and create changes where there needed be.  With his strong work ethic and determination, he completed a double major at Marquette in 5 years and went on to work with Goodwill Industries.  A company that is dedicated to helping people with disabilities get jobs.  Through their help Bryon was able to obtain his first job at Northwestern Mutual by doing the coding. 

Being able to finish college with a degree and obtain a career, Bryon then recognized that he had more goals for himself and to help spread awareness about paralysis and disabilities.  In 2001, Bryon founded the Bryon Riesch Paralysis Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping find a cure for individuals suffering from paralysis, and other neurological disorders. 

The Foundation holds many events to help fund money towards research for a cure.  The annual Bryon Riesch Golf Outing this past year raised over $100,000, and the run/walk made over $8,000.  All of the proceeds go towards research and supporting individuals who suffer from paralysis and neurological disorders. 

Riesch not only has a passion for supporting individuals with paralysis and neurological disorders and finding a cure, but he also is an advocate for the proper social interaction with people who have disabilities or handicaps.  He gave our class some very enlightening and important advice.  Respect is the biggest thing to remember, they are people too.  They may have a handicap and limited to some things but it does not mean that they are limited to everything.  Let them have the freedom they want, and don't treat them like they are sick or incapable, talk to them like they are a normal person. 

Bryon's presentation really gave opened our eyes to how much any regular person is actually capable of.  He has an amazing attitude and determination despite the difficult obstacles he has to overcome daily.  He is inspiring and really gave us an enlightening experience on how much an impact one individual really can have.  His work ethic and motivation along with his desire to make a change displays that anyone can make a difference in the world if they work hard enough.

Blogging in the PR Real World

Recently in our PR Tactics 2 class we had a very interesting speaker come in to talk to us about Blogging.  Her name was Trish Skram.  She graduated from UW-Whitewater with a double major in Marketing and Public Relations in 2004.  She shared with us her experiences as an undergrad and how she rose to her position in the PR field today. 

As an undergraduate she only had one internship at Mercy Medical, in which she stayed at by moving up through the company to the current position she has with them today.  She is now the media specialist and and PR manager and is responsible for handling all the social media outlets such as twitter, facebook, and blogging.

Blogging is what really set Trish apart from her competitors and opened the door for her to move up in her job and in the field of PR.  Because of her experiences and many experiences in the blogging world, Trish has learned how to effectively use blogging to increase her pesonal strategy as well as to pofessionally market herself as well.

Trish gave us examples of how blogging has helped her and others in the business world.  She stated that blogging helps generate the content of what you are promoting personally or through your business, helps to grow your network and gives you information to share on your other social networks.

Networking is another thing that Trish stressed.  She provided us with her email address trishskram@gmail.com, her twitter @trishskram, and her blogging website trishskram.com to connect with us.  She also gave us some suggestions about who to follow on twitter, one being @saraevans, and gave us tips on how to start our own blogging experience.

She told us that writting about our personal experiences as undergrads and young proffesionals in the PR field is the way to go, and make our writting exciting and relatable to our peers and target audience.  She also made it a point that we cannot let fear keep us from taking a chance or risks once in a while.  If you never reach out and take that step you will never move forward in life or in your career. 

That advice and the tips Trish gave us about blogging and her personal and professional experiences as an alumni from UW-Whitewater gave me a lot of insight and inspiration to take my own chances and see where blogging can take me both personally through networking and professionally in the PR field. 

PR in the Real World

Recently our class had the opportunity to discuss public relations in the real world with an alumni from UW-Whitewater Amy Paul.  She is a recent graduate of the University graduating with a major in Public Relations and a Minor in Music.  Amy gave us a lot of great advice that we could relate to as undergrads, shared her experience on the transition from college students to professionals, and gave us a little insight on a day of working in the professional P.R. field. 

She told us that though she had a lot of experience in internships in her undergraduate career, she never would have predicted herself working in the area of p.r. she is today.  She is now the Public Relations Assistant for the Milwaukee County Executive Office and her duties consist of social media management, sending out press releases, monitoring the media coverage, and her biggest and most recent project of event planning, the Milwaukee County Remembers 9/11 10 year anniversary event.  She even had a live video feed from Fox 6 of the entire event. 
 
I really enjoyed listening to how she utilized the skills she learned at UW-W and in her internships to single handedly plan a very large nationally recognized event in less than a month.  Because event planning is something I am currently doing in my positions in the orgs I am involved in on campus it was really beneficial to listen to how she created a plan and conducted it, to how she dealt with last minute crisis situations during the event.  I really appreciated being able to ask her questions and have her go into detail about the steps to successfully finding a rewarding job in the P.R. field.

It was a great opportunity for networking as well. She gave us her business cards and her information to connect with her on twitter  and linked in as well. 

All in all I think that it was a great experience that I learned alot from and a presentation that I really enjoyed.

The PR Student

My name is Stacey Hanke; I am a senior this year at UW-Whitewater studying public relations, and minoring in journalism and advertising.  Throughout my journey of pursuing my undergraduate degree, I have found that the communication department and the university grants many opportunities and advice to help students find their right “niche”.  As a student who has utilized these opportunities, and after much exploration, I feel that public relations is finally the right fit.    Though I know I have much to learn yet, I enjoy the practical skills I am learning and the deeper level of understanding towards the whole spectrum of P.R.  Because it is a field that you can go so many directions in I feel comfortable knowing that every day in my career will not have to be the same. And since I tend to have a pretty big bucket list of goals and aspirations I hope to achieve yet, knowing that P.R. is a field that I have the ability to explore different opportunities is exciting and motivating for me.  Motivation and determination are definitely two qualities that an individual needs to be in the field of Public Relations and I have had a lot of experience with my personal development of these characteristics.  Ambition is another quality that I believe is important and one that I feel I possess, as an executive board member of two organizations, Delta Zeta and SPILL, an involved member in many others and a leveraged associate at GUESS; it takes a lot of time and work but with organization, a positive attitude, and trying to remain flexible, I feel anything is possible if you set your mind to it.  Being able to manage a lot of different responsibilities I feel is preparation for a future in the P.R. world and makes me excited of what other experiences there are in store.