THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412090251
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
John Broderick teaches a course in public relations at Old Dominion University, and he tells his students that Square One is being honest.
This is good advice for two reasons: (A) Honesty prevents moral indigestion. (B) Reporters remember sources who lied like elephants remember keepers who lavish peanuts.
Broderick, who lives in Great Bridge, not only teaches public relations; he does it. He is ODU's director of university relations. He's the guy the media calls when there is good news, bad news or no news. In a sense, he's ODU's head cheerleader. It's not a description he's especially comfortable with, though. He'll tell you that the worst mistake a public relations type can make is over-selling a story. People who talk in exclamation points leave media people thinking in question marks.
Broderick is also quick to tell you that he's gotten his most valuable local public relations lessons from a couple of old public relations masters. One is Bev Lawler. The other is Lee Starkey. Both are veteran pros working out of Norfolk.
Starkey's the one I dealt with most. Years back, when Virginia Power was known as Vepco, it was one of the most unpopular businesses in the state. In its ability to create warm and fuzzy feelings, it ranked somewhere below skunks, high taxes and migraine headaches. But Starkey, Vepco's public relations man, was so good at his job that the company got every break it could hope for in the press.
His secret was flat-out integrity. If he told you something, it was so. When he couldn't tell you something, he'd let you know that. Trust him? If he told me to toss my charge cards and wait for Santa Claus, I just might do it.
Besides having a couple of first-rate local mentors, Broderick also toots a complimentary horn for his boss, Kay Kemper, ODU's vice president for institutional advancement.
A native of Bristol, Conn., Broderick says he has always loved to write. In high school, he both wrote sports for the school paper and played baseball. ``Every position except catcher. I was never unlucky enough to be a catcher.'' If you're not a baseball fan, understand that the catcher's the one who ends up with busted fingers and bad knees.
A sports-writing baseball player who can't hit a fast ball is better off swapping his bat for a word processor, and that's what Broderick did. He got a bachelor's degree in journalism from St. Bonaventure University in New York and a master's degree from Northeastern University in Boston, Mass. He worked for newspapers until he noticed that the hours were too long and the money too short. So he switched to public relations. Before coming to ODU in August of '93, he held down jobs at St. Bonaventure's and the University of Pittsburgh.
And now one of his favorite themes is the unsung success of ODU.
``In some areas, ODU is more nationally respected than locally respected,'' he says. ``We have a nationally respected oceanography program. We have a nationally respected physics program. We have a Teletechnet program that uses television to offer classes and degree programs at 13 community colleges and extended campus sites.''
Do I hear some of you saying, ``Respect doesn't buy groceries?'' But $500 million will, and that's how much Broderick says Old Dominion contributes to the local economy every year. He's counting what the university spends directly, plus things like job creation, grants and spin-off employment.
Broderick's job also involves him in Plan 2007. That's a project being ram-rodded by the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce to blend the entire region into an economic unit able to flex its muscles both on a national and international level. ODU is a key player in the effort.
Eventually, what the dreamers, schemers and planners hope is that they can create a Tidewater match for the well-recognized Research Triangle of the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
They are, by the way, wondering what to call the Tidewater version of the Research Triangle. The problem is that people elsewhere already get confused when they hear Hampton Roads or Tidewater. I'd just tell them it's a suburb of Great Bridge.
But I don't think Broderick would agree even though he lives there and his two children, Ryan and Matt, go to Great Bridge schools. His wife, Kate, is a fourth-grade teacher at Western Branch Intermediate School, and the stork is en route with a third youngster even as you read this. Any time now.
Broderick declares himself a contented transplant to the South, but there's one aspect of the transplant that gives him a chuckle. It's the weather.
He notes that school got canceled last winter when there was about an inch of snow. In New York, he says, if there's 12 inches but you can get your kids to the end of the driveway, the bus will pick them up.
That's downright cruel. Twelve inches of snow and kids still have to have their homework done. by CNB