From The CEO: Thanks for the Memories

To our 2017-18 staff,

We. Did. It! Can you believe how far we’ve come in the past two semesters? I appreciate each and every one of you who have worked with me through this experience, for one semester or the full year. I came into this position extremely eager to work with this new staff and amazing clients, and I wouldn’t change anything about this experience.  While we all know that the semester started with its bumps, I can confidently say that ‘we did it!’

I am so thankful for the summer team that helped me with the clients we had May - August. This experience allowed me to transition between Account Executive and Account Associate positions, which was imperative to my time as CEO. The summer team is a large part of why we were able to submit and win the award for Best Campaign at PRSSA National Conference. This team worked so hard on various clients and spent money summer nights meeting in Kirkhof and furthering their GrandPR experience. (Don’t worry, we went out for drinks after.)

Being in GrandPR gave me the experience of attending PRSSA National Conference and speaking on the student-run firm panel. I remember thinking I knew all the answers and that our firm structure was perfect, only to find out that there are other firms with 80+ members. Looking back, I think the size and structure of our firm was exactly what it should have been. I’m so glad I was able to learn about firms at other universities and make those connections.

Of course, come Fall semester, our firm size and structure did change a lot. (Shout-out to Morgan for being the only AE who stayed both semesters). Staff turnover drastically impacted myself and the firm, but I believe we were all able to learn from this experience. I became adamant right away that we should change the election cycle so that staff could understand their expectations before being put on team.

And now, the semester is coming to a close. For those of you who are graduating, congratulations on an amazing year. I hope you were able to learn and grow as much as I have this semester. I know each and every one of you are going to go on to do amazing things. Grand Valley State University’s Advertising and Public Relations program ensures all of it’s graduates are prepared for the future, but I hope you use your GrandPR experience to go above and beyond, like you always do.

Thank you all (especially Adrienne, Daltyn, and Elle) for empowering, encouraging, and supporting me every step of the way. Sabrina will be a fantastic CEO and is so prepared to take on this firm. She has already hired her new staff and ran her first meeting! That’s way more than past CEO’s would have done at this time.
Good luck, and thanks for the memories.

Jaclyn Ermoyan