National Media Forum on Highway Safety
Developing a Strategic Communications Plan

Speaker Bios

JOHN CRISP
President
AkinsCrisp Public Strategies
John Crisp is President of AkinsCrisp Public Strategies and heads the firm's Nashville office. A proven strategist and manager, Crisp has more than 20 years experience managing or consulting with corporate, government, political, and non-profit public relations and public affairs initiatives.

At AkinsCrisp, Crisp leads the firm's many national and regional integrated public relations and advertising accounts and oversees the Tennessee Valley corridor's highly successful regional economic development work, among several other important accounts.

A native Tennessean, Crisp lived in Washington, DC, for seven years in the late 19 80s and early 1990s, and served as Counselor to the U.S. Secretary of Education, where he worked closely with the nation's Governors to mobilize thousands of local communities and activists for the Bush Administration's AMERICA 2000 grassroots education reform initiative. With the national political consulting and advertising firm Bailey, Deardour. & Sipple, in the late 1980s, he consulted with more than 40 political candidates and campaigns across the country ranging from U.S. President to U.S. Senate and Congressional campaigns to local legislative and mayoral races. In the mid-80s, he served as an assistant to former Tennessee Gov. (now U.S. Senator) Lamar Alexander, and later helped Alexander launch the nationwide Republican Exchange Satellite Network.

Crisp serves on the board of directors of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce's International Business Council as a member of the chamber's government relations committee, and as a campaign advisor to Tennessee Congressman Bill Jenkins.

KATHY CROSBY
Senior Vice President, Group Campaign Director
The Advertising Council
Kathy Crosby is a senior vice president, group campaign director, at the Advertising Council. In this position, she is responsible for the development of Ad Council campaigns in the Washington, D.C., office. Crosby oversees more than 20 national PSA campaigns including the Ad Council's award-winning Smokey Bear and Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk campaigns.

Crosby joined the Ad Council in 2002 from Arnold Worldwide, where she served as vice president, director of strategic planning, on the Truth Anti-Tobacco account. She has more than 15 years of advertising agency experience in both the account management and strategic planning departments. Her experience includes directing the US Airways and SAP software accounts, and conducting research and planning for McDonald's and Mobil Oil.

Crosby received a B.A. in political science from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

CATHERINE FARMER
Senior Vice President, Director of Public Relations
Kelly Michener
Cathy Farmer incorporates several years of professional experience as a television and radio news director, anchorwoman, and reporter into her work at Kelly Michener, a full-service advertising, marketing, and public relations firm. For over 20 years, Farmer has directed public relations programs for a wide range of agency clients including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Mid-Atlantic Region, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Pennsylvania Medical Society, the Pennsylvania Dairy Promotion Program, the Pennsylvania Beef Council, Turkey Hill Dairy, Bostonian Shoes, and RCA, to name a few. Her clients have been featured in regional and national media including the Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, New York Times, the Today show, the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, 20/20, and National Public Radio (NPR). Her public relations campaigns have received numerous industry awards including the "Best of Show" Pepperpot award from the Philadelphia chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, and a first-place gold award from the National Advertising Agency Network. The author of numerous articles for magazines, newspapers, and the Associated Press, Farmer has shared her considerable knowledge as an instructor of journalism writing at Penn State University-Capitol Campus, and as a guest lecturer at Millersville University and York College. She's listed in Who's Who of American Women and Who's Who in Advertising.
Farmer holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri.

JEFF FINN
Journalism Professor
American University
Jeff Finn brings almost 19 years of demonstrated ability to his work in communications, with a particular expertise in the communications and decision-support needs of older adults and their adult children.

During that time he has conceptualized and implemented strategic communication and evaluation plans. Finn, a professor at American University in Washington, D.C., has particular expertise in message development and information dissemination programs at national and community levels.

During the past five years he has helped lead efforts to forge the shape and direction of the national response to the public information and education efforts on the issue of older-driver safety. To that end, he has done extensive work exploring cost-effective partnerships with community, regional and Internet-based organizations.

DONNA FEINER
Senior Vice President, Campaign Outreach Initiatives
The Advertising Council
As senior vice president, campaign outreach initiatives, at the Ad Council, Donna Feiner is responsible for managing and implementing training and assistance programs for Ad Council campaign sponsor organizations and their grassroots affiliates. The programs are designed to help local groups more effectively market their causes to the media and increase media exposure for the PSA campaigns and their organizations. She is also responsible for managing the public service component of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign.

Feiner joined the Ad Council in 1988 as media director responsible for overseeing media planning, outreach, tracking and analysis of the full docket of Ad Council campaigns.

Prior to joining the Ad Council, Feiner built her advertising and media career in media buying, planning and supervisory positions at several major advertising agencies in Chicago and New York.

Feiner has a bachelor's degree in journalism with a concentration in advertising from the University of Wisconsin. She lives in New York City.

TONY FOLENO
Research Director
The Advertising Council
Tony Foleno is research director at the Advertising Council. In this position, he advises the strategic planning for 20 Ad Council public service campaigns. He leads quantitative and qualitative evaluation research projects for these campaigns, which include Impaired Driving Prevention and Booster Seat Awareness. In addition, he directs internal studies that investigate best practices in public service advertising, and he manages research and reports on selected social issues.

Prior to his current position, he managed projects at Public Agenda, a nonpartisan public opinion and policy research organization. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and holds an M.A. in sociology from Columbia University.

JOHN GERZEMA
Chief Insight Officer
Young & Rubicam Brands
John joined Young & Rubicam Brands from Fallon Worldwide, the holding company of Fallon in Minneapolis Minnesota. Gerzema ran Fallon's international network, overseeing offices in London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and partnerships in Latin America, U.S. Hispanic, and Asia. Gerzema was the principle architect of Fallon's global expansion strategy and led Fallon's transformation from a U.S. agency into a thriving global company with new global clients Citibank, Con Agra, United Airlines, Purina Pet Foods, Time Warner, Sony Europe and China, MTV, and Volkswagen Asia.

With Gerzema's leadership, Fallon is now regarded as one of the strongest strategic and creative companies in the world. Gerzema joined Fallon in 1992 and helped introduce account planning. He was an integral part of Fallon's growth in the mid-90s, when Fallon tripled in size, was named Advertising Age's "Agency Of The Year" (1996), and earned an A+ management rating in ADWEEK (2004). His client experience is centered on blue-chip brands and youth marketing, which include Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Citibank, Sony, United Airlines, Miller Brewing, Holiday Inn, Nikon, Black & Decker, Rolling Stone, and Sports Illustrated, among many others. In 1997, Gerzema became managing partner and director of account planning for Fallon New York, where he also directed new business and general operations.

Gerzema has lectured in seminars for the AAAA, AMA, One Show, APG, Miami Ad School and others, and has written for, or appeared on/in, CNBC/ASIA, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and various industry publications in the United States, Asia, and Latin America. Gerzema was recently the keynote speaker at the AAAA's creative awards in Auckland, New Zealand.

KAREN GRUEBNAU
GMMB, Inc.
Karen Gruebnau, a vice president at GMMB, Inc., has worked at GMMB for the past seven years, offering clients a wide range of expertise in advertising, media relations and grassroots organizing.

Gruebnau has directed and managed National and statewide advertising campaigns aimed at increasing safety belt use and reducing impaired driving for a number of clients, including the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Florida Institute for Police Technology and Management, and the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety.

Currently, she co-manages the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign, overseeing the organizing team in its grassroots outreach effort to recruit law enforcement agencies to participate in Click It or Ticket Mobilization, a nationally coordinated effort by law enforcement to crack down on drivers who don't buckle up themselves or their child passengers.

In addition, Gruebnau coordinates the day-to-day operations of the advertising campaign for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. The goal of the campaign is to encourage small business owners, entrepreneurs, and business leaders of larger companies in the Northeast corridor to "find out what's new in New Jersey" and either start a business or maintain their businesses there.

Prior to joining GMMB, Gruebnau worked with the Cadillac and Chevrolet account staff at D'Arcy, Masius, Benton & Bowles Public Relations in Bloomfield, Mich., promoting special events.
She is a graduate of Albion College with degrees in Spanish and communications.

JOE LOZITO
Director of Interactive Technologies
Connect@jwt
Joe Lozito joined connect@jwt as its first director of interactive technologies after seven years as product manager at New-York-based software company Information Builders and a year as vice president of business development at the Gryphon Group, a boutique Web design shop in New York City's "Silicon Alley."

In his more than four years with connect@jwt North America, Lozito has overseen the development and implementation of marketing and communications platforms for (among others) the Diamond Trading Company (formerly DeBeers), Lipton Brisk, Bubblicious, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Cargill, U.S. Marine Corps, Schick, Lever2000, HSBC bank, Listerine, and Trident.

Lozito received his B.A. degree in computer science from Vassar College. With more than 10 years of programming experience, Lozito has watched the Web grow from its early incarnations to a viable business medium. He is fluent in most Web languages, as well as a little Spanish and Italian.

FRED MANOCHERIAN
Founder
National Road Safety Foundation, Inc.
Fraydun "Fred" Manocherian is recognized in national safety circles as a pioneer in the prevention of drunk driving. He has long advocated use of mass media to promote safety on our roads.

In 1962, he founded the Manocherian Foundation, presently known as the National Road Safety Foundation, which produces documentaries, educational videos and public service campaigns which it distributes free of charge for television broadcast, schools and institutions in the United States.

For his dedication and accomplishments in the field of auto safety, Manocherian received the 1997 Distinguished Service to Safety Award from the National Safety Council, an honorary doctorate of humane letters from St. John's University, a Master of Arts degree from the International University of Communications in Washington, DC, "Man of the Year" award from the New York Council for Civic Affairs, and "Man of the Year" award from the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association.

Manocherian is a co-founder of the Carter Center human rights organization and was appointed by President George Bush to serve on the National Driver Register Advisory Committee, which fulfilled its mission. He is married and has five children.

ALICE MATHEWS
Account Group Supervisor
The Tombras Group

Client Responsibilities

• Account supervision and strategic planning for NHTSA
• Administration of contracting and operational issues

Professional Background

• Account Supervisor, Business Manager, The Tombras Group, Knoxville, TN, 1998 - Present
• Marketing Manager, Covenant Health/PHP Companies, Inc., Knoxville, TN, 1996-1998
• Marketing Coordinator, Tennessee's Resource Valley, Knoxville, TN, 1995

Clients Past and Present

• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• East Tennessee Economic Development Agency
• Smoky Mountain Convention and Visitors Bureau

Educational & Specialized Training

• Master of Business Administration, 2004
• Bachelor of Arts, Political Science and English, 1994
  

DAVID MITCHELL
Senior Partner
GMMB, Inc.
David Mitchell is a senior partner at GMMB, Inc. After getting his start in radio and television, Mitchell gained more than 25 years' experience in advertising and public relations. His award-winning work helped earn GMMB national and international recognition, including a Clio award and three Silver Anvils from the Public Relations Society of America.

Mitchell plays a guiding role in much of the firm's cause- and issue-related activities, particularly in the areas of children, health care and public health. He has advised on advertising and earned media campaigns for Johnson & Johnson, America's Health Insurance Plans, NHTSA, DaimlerChrysler, the U.S. Department of State, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Leapfrog Group, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Mitchell has helped enact higher tobacco taxes and clean indoor-air laws that have reduced teen smoking across the country. His strategy and leadership on the National Safety Council's Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign has been credited with helping dramatically reduce the rate of child deaths from air bags by more than 90 percent. That same campaign helped bring about the largest increases in national safety belt and child-restraint use in a decade.

Prior to joining GMMB, Mitchell was director of the Public Affairs Division of Columbus, Ohio-based advertising agency Hameroff-Milenthal, Inc. He also spent eight years with the United Auto Workers Union, where he was director of public relations and publications. Mitchell worked for several years in radio and TV as a news reporter and announcer. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Michigan State University.

PRISCILLA NATKINS
The Advertising Council
Priscilla Natkins, executive vice president, director of client services, joined the Advertising Council in January 1999, after nearly 17 years of account management at several New York advertising agencies, including DMB&B, J. Walter Thompson and Bates USA. Natkins worked on a broad range of packaged goods and financial services accounts during her long tenure in the advertising industry.

At the Ad Council, Natkins oversees the development of all campaigns on the Ad Council docket. In addition to managing the strategic and creative development of the Ad Council campaigns, Natkins also oversees the Research Department, the Creative Services Department, and the media measurement function, as well as the assessment of new issues to be considered as Ad Council campaigns.

Natkins holds an M.B.A. from Columbia University, with a specialization in marketing. Natkins shares the Ad Council's commitment to children's issues, and has served on the Education Advisory Board for the Children's Aid Society. She is currently on the Board of the St. Bernard's Head Start Program in White Plains, N.Y. She lives in Westchester, N.Y., with her husband Seth and their two children.

MARIA L. PEREZ
Strategic Sales, Marketing and Media Consultant
MLMP Productions
Maria L. Perez founded MLMP Productions in 1984. Known for her creativity, energy, interpersonal skills, and pragmatism, Perez has a proven ability to maximize the impact of marketing budgets. Her writing, marketing and media technology background enables her to craft innovative solutions for her clients.

Perez holds a Bachelor's Degree in psychology, human growth and development from Antioch College and a journalism certificate from London University Writers Program. In 1983 she attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education, receiving her Master's Degree in education concentrating in teaching, curriculum and learning environments and working on the award-winning PBS show Sesame Street. In 1984 she received a post-graduate degree in interactive media technology.

From 1982-92 MLMP's primary business was video production of training and marketing materials and television. By happenstance, Perez attended an auto race and became intrigued with the marketing and sponsorship deals. In her analysis of how business was done she identified that little or no public/private partnerships existed in motor sports, and began forging them. Perez is known far and wide for having brought auto racing and sports marketing traditions to government and non-profit arenas.

Examples of her work include:
Recording Artists Actors and Athletes Against Drunk Driving (RADD), a NHTSA grantee - Perez built its sports marketing program.

During the late 1990s Perez forged a relationship between Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to distribute traffic safety messages and brochures such as Buying A Safer Car.

Perez also worked with NHTSA to develop an Event Marketing Plan and Awareness Campaign for Buying a Safer Car for Child Passengers through CARA Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary as well as distributing child safety seats and conducting installation seminars.

Currently Perez works as a consultant to NHTSA in its sports and entertainment marketing efforts. Perez also is providing technical assistance to the Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety and Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) in launching and executing a NASCAR-themed Buckle Up Campaign.

GEORGE PERLOV
Senior Vice President, Planning, Research, and Foundation Relations
The Advertising Council
George Perlov is senior vice president for planning, research and foundation relations at the Advertising Council. In this position, he is responsible for advising the planning and research process for the Ad Council's public service campaigns, directing proprietary research to better understand the media's use of PSA’s as well as research and reports on selected social issues. He is also responsible for measuring campaign effectiveness, which includes measurement of donated media, pre- and post-campaign tracking surveys, management of fulfillment results and externally monitored campaign outcomes. In addition, he is in charge of grant procurement for all major organizational initiatives.

Prior to his current position, he spent more than 12 years in the commercial marketing and advertising world, in the areas of account management and strategic planning, both in the U.S. and Japan. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and holds an M.P.A. degree from Columbia University.

DR. WILLIAM A. SMITH
Academy for Educational Development
Dr. Smith is the executive vice president of the Academy for Educational Development, one of America's largest non-profits. AED supports programs worth more than $200 million every year across the U.S. and in more than 80 foreign countries. AED has become one of the leading American institutions in the use of communication and social marketing to support environment change.

Dr. Smith first worked on transportation issues with EPA. In a program called Let Kids Lead teens were the lightning rod of social change around cars and air pollution. Today, working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Dr. Smith supervises AED's support to the NHTSA's Buckle Up America program.

Dr. Smith is also a co-founder of the Social Marketing Institute, a columnist and editorial board member of the Social Marketing Quarterly, the International Journal of Health Communication and the Applied Environmental Education and Communication: An International Journal. He recently wrote Fostering Community-based Social Marketing and has published dozens of articles describing how social marketing can be used to support social change on subjects from condom use to air pollution; from policy reform to fund-raising for non-profits. The book targets the needs of communities and provides practical marketing advice to grass­roots organizations.

Dr. Smith has a doctorate in non-formal education with an emphasis on gaming theory from the University of Massachusetts. He speaks widely on issues of transportation, human behavior and social marketing.

JAY SOKOLOW
Sr. Vice President/Account Supervisor
The Tombras Group

Client Responsibilities

• Account supervision and strategic planning for NHTSA
• Development of media partnerships and value-added promotions

Professional Background

• Sr. Vice President/Account Supervisor, Tombras Group, Knoxville, TN 2004 - Present
• Partner/Vice President, Target Marketing, Johnson City, TN 1999 - 2003
• General Sales Manager--FM Stations, Citadel Broadcasting, Tri-Cities, TN 1997 - 1999
• Sr. Vice President/Account Supervisor, Tombras Group, Kingsport, TN 1988 -1997
• Account Executive, The Tombras Group, Bristol, TN 1979-1988

Community Involvement

• Tri-Cities Regional Airport Commission, Marketing Committee
• Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association
  • Past President
  • Board Member
• Tri-Cities Metro Ad Federation, Past President
• United Way of Tri-Cities, Fund Raising Chairman
• Boy Scouts of America, Strategic Planning Task Force

Educational & Specialized Training

• Bachelor of Arts, Journalism-Marshall University, 1975
• Pepsi-Cola USA Media Training-Purchase, NY, 1982

Professional Recognition & Achievements

• Pepsi-Cola USA-Effie (Spot Market Media Buying Efficiency) Award, 1984
• Pepsi-Cola USA-DMA Promotion of the Year, 1985
• Anheuser-Busch-You Should Know Alcohol Awareness Program, 1985

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