Hone your crisis communications skills and learn from experts who manage emergency scenarios every day
About this event
Could you handle being “in the hot seat” of a major event or catastrophe? When your client or organization is facing adversity, how should you manage the many demands coming in at once?
Greater Fort Worth PRSA is offering a half-day professional development seminar from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, September 15, 2022, in Ridglea Country Club’s Garden Room. The seminar features a tabletop emergency exercise led by members of the Dallas Office of Emergency Managementfollowed by a luncheon featuring Sparkle Bell, Communications Division director for the Harris County Flood Control District.
During the tabletop exercise, you and a team of other professionals will be confronted with a series of realistic, escalating emergencies for which you must provide communications support.
You will devise strategy and tactics in real time and gain valuable experience, including conducting a mock press conference and drafting social media responses in real-time. Tabletop excercise participants are encouraged to bring a fully-charged laptop for use throughout the session.
Our facilitators are:
- Catherine Cuellar, director of communications, outreach and marketing, City of Dallas. Catherine is a two-time TEDx speaker and award-winning journalist with experience at NPR affiliates in Los Angeles and Dallas and at The Dallas Morning News. She has spoken about smart cities and creative placemaking at conferences including South by Southwest, the New Cities Summit, ULI and Rail~Volution.
- John Patterson, senior emergency management specialist, City of Dallas. John has more than 25 years in public and private sector emergency management experience and has held positions in Caddo-Bossier, L.A., Fort Worth, Coppell, Ellis County, and at Lockheed Martin as a contractor with FEMA Region VI.
- Jennifer Moreno, emergency management specialist/public information officer for the Dallas Office of Emergency Management. Jennifer holds an undergraduate degree from West Texas A&M University in Emergency Management Administration.
Sparkle Bell, our luncheon speaker, holds her APR certification and is a seasoned, strategic communications and marketing leader. She has served in various communications roles throughout Houston’s biggest hurricanes — as assignment editor at a local television station during Katrina, at a local utility service provider during Ike and at the city of Pearland during Hurricane Harvey.
Bell will share her perspective on working with the media, including discussion of how reporters and producers think and work. She’ll also share techniques for conveying information to the media before, during, and after a crisis, as well as public communications strategies and tactics for addressing opportunities and challenges that may arise during a crisis.
This event is generously sponsored by Electro Acoustics, a Fort Worth-based video, audio and theatrical lighting company.
Buy tickets for the full-day seminar with lunch, the morning program only or the luncheon only.
- 8:30 a.m. to noon – Tabletop Emergency Exercise
- Noon-1 p.m. – Greater Fort Worth PRSA Chapter luncheon featuring Sparkle Bell, Communications Division director, Harris County Flood Control District
