Troy Kirkpatrick visits OU and Scripps PRSSA; September 22nd meeting recap

By Marisa Fiore

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Don’t forget to get your Professional Headshots by Allison Evans this weekend! You can register for your time slot at the table on the first floor of Baker on Thursday, September 25th from 11 am to 3 pm or Friday, September 26^th from 11 am to 1 pm. Professional head shots will be taken on Saturday, September 27^th or Sunday, September 28^th between 11 am and 4 pm. For $10 you will get three individual headshots and group photos will range from $25 to $50 depending on the size of the group or organization. Email scrippsprssa@gmail.com with any questions!
• Our mentor/mentee program is starting up! If you are still interested in being a mentor or mentee please contact our VP of Member Relations, Jess Carnprobst at jc206511@ohio.edu.
• Become a PRSSA Dues-Paying Member! Dues are $75 and are due to Gary by October 6^th. Please contact our VP of Finance, Gary Bridgens (gb107210@ohio.edu) with any questions.
• PR Bootcamp has started! This week we will be talking about Social Media! Please join us on Tuesday from 6-7:30 pm in Ellis 111.
• If you are interested in joining any of our projects including: International Education Week, The New Political, International Week and Scripps Innovation Challenge please email ScrippsPRSSA@gmail.com!
• Congratulations to this week’s member spotlight Sam Miller! Sam is.. Tweet at her to congratulate her at @KeepCalmSam14
• Get involved in the PR and Social Media Committee run by our VP of Public Relations, Mira Kuhar, and our VP of Social Media, Stephanie Gort. They will be meeting on Wednesday at 6:30 in the Rollins Room of Alden. This is a great way to get involved!

• Don’t forget we always go to dinner at The Over Hang right after PRSSA with our speaker!

Welcome, Troy Kirkpatrick!

This week we would like to welcome our Jerry Sloan Visiting Professional of Public Relations, Troy Kirkpatrick! Troy is a 1997 graduate from Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism and a former Scripps PRSSA president. He is the Director of Public Relations for CareFusion (http://www.carefusion.com/), a $3.8 billion medical technology company focused on improving the safety and reducing the cost of health care.

Prior to CareFusion, Troy held a variety of diverse communication positions at Battelle (http://www.battelle.org/), Cardinal Health (http://www.cardinal.com/), GE (http://www.ge.com/), the Office of the Governor of Ohio and he also created his own communication agency focused on humor communication. In addition, he held communication positions at Lord, Sullivan & Yoder (known today as Fahlgren Mortine (https://www.fahlgrenmortine.com/) and OhioHealth (https://www.ohiohealth.com/).

Right off the bat, Troy wanted to make sure we knew what we were passionate about. His passions include family, tennis, being a songwriter, writing and being a bobcat. He said it is also very important to have heroes. Some of his heroes include his dad, Tony Arata, Andreas Seppi and Jerry Sloan.

He would like for everyone to take the time this week to thank Jerry Sloan for hosting this program! Some fun facts about Jerry Sloan is that he is currently in Paris right now, loves jello shots, lives in Charlotte, NC on Lake Davidson and met his wife at OU! You can contact Jerry at jerrysloan@icloud.com.

Jerry Sloan sounds like the OG bobcat of OU. I really hope he makes an appearance at #ScrippsPRSSA soon!!

— Stephanie Gort (@StephGort) September 22, 2014

Troy got his start at OhioHealth where we was working on a plan for the OhioHealth website. Here he was the closest to the patients and could see the greatest impact. He was then offered a job at Lord, Sullivan & Yoder as an Account Manager working in the rapidly growing digital strategy field. He loved his job there, but felt the need for a change. So when he was offered a job at the Ohio Governor’s office as the Assistant Press Secretary, he ran with it! Here his boss was a “no bullshit, machine gun coming at you” kind of person, and Troy knew he would be able to learn a lot in this position. In this job he was able to travel with the governor and realized that you have to like who you work for in order to like your job. When he got a new boss that he didn’t like as much as his old boss, he decided to move on to the next challenge. Troy decided to get into corporate, which had always been something he thought he would like, because that is what is his mentor Jerry Sloan was in. As Troy moved from Ohio to Upstate New York to work for General Electric, he found that this was the first time he could be immersed in company culture and had a diversified workload. “They were the smartest people I had ever worked with, from the engineers to the communications personnel,” said Troy. Two years into his career at GE, they decided to promote him and move him to Philadelphia, PA. Two years after that, they wanted to move Troy again. Since he was just starting his family and he didn’t want to move every two years, he decided it was time for another change. He made the decision to move back to Ohio and work with Cardinal Health. At Cardinal Health they were very focused on the caregivers and Troy was able to see the business behind healthcare. Here financial writing and quarterly earnings statements challenged him, but after a few years he wanted a new challenge.

“You have to like who you’re working for in order to like your job.” #ScrippsPRSSA — Megan Newton (@_megannewton) September 22, 2014

Troy made the decision to start his own agency, CommHa, that incorporated humor into their messaging. At this point he was self-employed and found life to be “super stressful.”

Incorporating humor in strategic writing for companies??! I LOVE that! CommHa sounds awesome @troykirkpatrick! #ScrippsPRSSA

— Stephanie Gort (@StephGort) September 22, 2014

So at this point he decided to take a job at Battelle. Here he was writing about things that even the engineers didn’t know how to explain. He was taking complicated methods and boiling them down to something that the every day person would be able to understand. A few years later he was offered the chance to work at CareFusion, which was a branch off of Cardinal Health, as the Director of Public Relations. In this role, he oversees all aspects of the company’s external communication efforts including trade and national media relations, social media, financial communication, issues management and crisis communication. He is also the company’s primary spokesperson.

@troykirkpatrick is a prime example of being able to have multiple opportunities in the field of #PR. #ScrippsPRSSA pic.twitter.com/fG7ghe0tEo — Scripps PRSSA (@ScrippsPRSSA) September 22, 2014

Troy wants to keep in touch with all Scripps PRSSA students. If you follow him on twitter he will be tweeting out #OUWisdom this week from his colleagues from Ohio University.