The public relations profession lost a true original and trailblazer when Judith Bogart-Meredith, APR, Fellow PRSA passed away recently.
”I was lucky enough to work for her. And while I’m linking to Judith's well-intended obit (https://lnkd.in/g6vENRFK), and a long list of her industry involvement and accolades (https://lnkd.in/gKaSWDA3) they simply don’t do her justice.
Even this attempt can't do so. But hopefully, others will add to it.
Judith was in PR for 50 years, starting when few women were doing so. She was PR director for Great Rivers Girl Scout Council and a director of community relations for the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, after which she consulted for the Dayton desegregation program.
She then became VP of PR at Cincinnati's Jewish Hospital (with no healthcare experience) and eventually director of PR at Sive/Young & Rubicam until retiring in 1996.
When Judith became national president of PRSA in 1983, she was only the second woman to do so. The New York Times interviewed her, giving us an idea of how she just wasn’t having the era in which she worked. You can read that article here.
(https://lnkd.in/gyj_5aCP)
"PR is portrayed as a glamour profession," she said, "but it takes a lot of reading and studying to keep up with the trends, which must be translated into predictions for your company. People who have bad work habits can't last in PR."
"Women are scrutinized more closely before they're advanced. That's because they're women in a man's organization, and the men want to make sure she will work out in 'their' world. What has happened, though, is that more women are able to work out in the man's world."
Always ahead of her time, she exposed me to new technology, inspiring a career-long focus on the Internet. And in 2007, well after retiring, she remained a prescient, unflagging supporter of PR.
“With the nature of communication changing daily with every invention, some are wringing their hands and bemoaning the fact that PR is so different now. Perhaps the way in which we communicate electronically is changing, but human contact is still a basic need. People still make up their minds...by talking to other people. We help provide those linkages. It’s a wonderful way to get to know interesting people, to widen our networks, and to demonstrate that PR is a lot more than publicity!”
I think it was Judith's ability to always make you feel like the more important person in the room that fueled her immeasurable impact on people. She taught me the value of simply being yourself.
You may know that a local PRSA award (the Werner-Vonderhaar-Bogart Award) was named after her. It’s the single highest honor the chapter can bestow on a member. An even higher honor than the WVB Award is having the chance to know Judith Bogart-Meredith, APR, Fellow PRSA. I am forever in her debt as a practitioner and as a person.”