Farah

First PR Job:
Intern at Ketchum Public Relations in New York, NY

Area of Specialization:
Healthcare

Weirdest Request/Job Task:
Inflating a stockroom full of miniature footballs

PR Aspiration:
PR for Manolo Blahnik

Favourite book:
The Time Traveller’s Wife

Dream vacation:
Diving in the Barrier Reef, Belize

Heels or flats:
Stilettos any day of the week.

Jennifer

First PR job:
Bayer Inc., Corporate Communications

Area of specialization:
Health and business

Weirdest request/job task:
Sourcing out a trained parrot

PR aspiration:
Recurring role as PR director for Seattle Grace Hospital on Grey’s Anatomy

Hobbies:
Relaxing on the dock at my cottage, reading celebrity blogs and trashy magazines,

Screensaver at work:
Patrick Dempsey

Ice cream:
Definitely Chocolate

Dream vacation:
Italian lake country (Lake Como or Garda)

Joscelyn

First PR job:
Account Coordinator, TFC

Area of specialization:
Business and consumer

Weirdest job task:
Pretending to be a participant in an event (along with props).

PR aspiration:
To influence the world!

Favourite movie:
Pretty Woman

Favourite celebrity:
Reese Witherspoon

Favourite board game:
Game of Life

Dream vacation:
Venice, Italy

Sandra

First PR job:
PR Associate, General Foods

Area of specialization:
Hard to say, I like and have done just about all of them.

Weirdest request/job task:
While working in a hospital setting, a call came in from a reporter on September 11 asking if I could confirm that bodies from the twin towers would be brought to Toronto because of the supposed lack of morgue space in New York City.

PR aspiration:
Figure out a way to get the word “hogwash” into a quote in the media

Favourite book:
Just about anything from John Irving, Marian Keyes, Maeve Binchy

Dream vacation:
Cruise around the world

Heels or flats:
Flat shoes – who needs more height?

Favourite drink:
A nice, cold dry white wine – or a traditional martini (not one of those martini cocktail things!)

Kyra

First PR Job:
Media and Communications Officer for the Nepean Division of General Practice in Sydney, Australia.

Area of Specialization:
Interested in social media and how it is impacting business and society.

Weirdest Request/Job Task:
Made 150 red lotus origami flowers to decorate a Christmas tree. It was extremely tedious and beautiful. I also had to enlist and train everyone I knew.

PR Aspiration:
To save the tigers.

Favourite book?
Underworld by Don DeLillo

Favourite city?
Bangkok.

Favourite drink?
Ephemere.

Mary-Margaret

First PR job:
External relations coordinator, McGill Sexual Assault Centre

Area of specialization:
Entertainment, tech, consumer, corporate, events … everything except for IR and healthcare

Weirdest request/job task:
Pitching Rebecca Eckler to go bikini shopping with a volleyball. (They opted for drinks at Sotto Sotto instead).

PR aspiration:
To be the Dalai Lama’s personal publicist. (Imagine the perks! Nirvana.)

Favourite book:
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman; The Color Purple, Alice Walker; A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry.

Dream vacation:
Extended yoga retreat on a beach in Maldives or Zanzibar.

Heels or flats:
Barefoot.

Favourite drink:
Venti half bold half decaf.

Sammy

First PR job:
Administrative Coordinator/lady of the front desk, Thornley Fallis Communications.

First job ever:
Server of BeaverTails at Pig’s Island on the canal in Ottawa, ON. Mmmmm. Who doesn’t like float cooked pastries smothered in butter, cinnamon-sugar and lemon juice?

Area of specialization:
Phones, meeting set up, courier calls, receiving mail, media monitoring, scanning things, a little accounting-side work, producing and publishing podcasts, setting up Third Tuesday’s, talking to IT, dealing with printer issues and the paper cutter.

PR aspiration:
Working with Social Media to combine traditional PR with interactive marketing.

Coolest job:
Working in the Vegetable Garden at Rideau Hall.

Favourite movie:
Hot Fuzz.

Dream vacation:
One month snowboarding at Red Mountain, BC. Complete with hot tub, balcony and my partner in crime!

Hobbies:
In my spare time I like to: crochet, grow vegetables, read sci-fi, watch zombie and gangster movies, play with my cats, do puzzles, collecting vinyl figurines, walking and video games.

Secret Geek:
I read source code for websites and occasionally work through calculus and quantitative theorem formulas.

Favorite drink:
A perfectly poured Guinness with a one inch crown, at about 5 degrees Celsius.