Riverside PR

Downtown Riverside was my (Clare’s) first outing for Day 14 after settling down with my new host family Karen and Clint Bradford. Downtown is quite picturesque as the streets are lined with towering palm trees and magnificent old buildings. We stopped in at the Riverside Art Centre and Museum before heading to the Mission Inn for dinner where we ran into Larry Berenato, a communications specialist with the County of Riverside – perfect opportunity to talk shop!

Today (day 15) was vocational day and was jam-packed with local PR and marketing professionals willing to share their expertise with me. We started early with breakfast at Riverside Sunrise Rotary followed by a tour and coffee with Barbara Gallert, Customer Communications Coordinator at the Riverside Public Utilities and Austin Carter, Public Information Officer for the City of Riverside.


Barbara shared some of the marketing strategies and collateral used to communicate with their customers/stakeholders as well as a range of their environmental programs currently on the go.

Next stop was lunch with Sid Robinson, Assistant Vice President of Public Affairs with the California State University and Chris Perez who has his own PR consultancy. Sid and Chris talked about their current roles as well as projects they have worked on in the past – which include the LA County Fair and a uniform launch for the Anaheim Angels.

We visited the University of California Riverside after lunch and caught up with Kris Lovekin, Director of Media Relations and Todd Ransom, Senior Public Information Officer. Kris and Todd shared the role of their media relations unit as well as the marketing strategies used to attract potential students.

Last stop of the day – Coffee Depot… where Karen had kindly invited some more of her PR and marketing friends to join us. We had a great time swapping stories, exchanging ideas and chatting about everything from anti-smoking campaigns to pop culture. From all my PR encounters today (both structured and casual), it is interesting to note that PR and marketing in the US, particularly in the public sector, are very similar back home.