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Brent elsasser

PR Interview
Conducted by: Shelby Polfliet

Director of communications
-Hillwood Country ClubPersonal Life:

he got his masters degree

Communications Director

in administrative studies

and has been there since.

Brent grew up in a rural

with a focus in sports

town in Nebraska. He

management. Brent

attended Wayne State

married his wife Ericka in

College and got a degree

2012. Sent, they have had

in business administration

one little boy and are

and sports management.

expecting a second child.

After graduation received a

He moved to Nashville in

statistic position at Missouri

2008 and accepted a

State University for their

position at Hillwood

baseball team. While there,

Country Club as the

EDUCATION:
Wayne State College
Missouri State University

Brent has always had a

passion for sports and
sports journalism. He feels
that his education, while
not in PR, helped him to
develop a love for
communications and the
accuracy necessary to be
in a director position.

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Lorem Ipsum

His Position at
Hillwood Country
Club:
In Brents position
at Hillwood country
club he is directly
under the CFO,

Working at Hillwood

Sally. Although, he
is the head and

Brent started at Hillwood

much of his time but has

Country Club nearly 8

great outcomes, he

years ago. He says that

stated that the

his position has grown

newsletter has a 60%

immensely since then

open-rate by the

has taken on the

and has taken on a

members and has close

role of managing

variety of tasks. A typical

numbers in the click rate

day for Brent depends

from any of the links

the three

on which day of the

within the newsletter

receptionists that

week it is. Brent is

fortunate that he only

itself. On Thursday and

Friday Brent is more

needs to work four days

available after sending

a week. Tuesday and

Wednesday Brent is

out the newsletter to

take on his many tasks

completely consumed by
production and

in IT, the phone system,

photography, and more

dispersion of the weekly

newsletter at Hillwood.

employee relations.

sole employee in
his department.
Additionally, he

Hillwood employs.
His tasks with the
receptionists
include training
and scheduling.

This newsletter takes up

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PROS AND CONS

newsletter, in a timely
manner. These are things

Brent finds it difficult to

that Brent doesn't enjoy

communicate with all of

about his position.

the employees based on

However, Brent enjoys the

the fact that many of them

communication he gets to

don't read the newsletter

establish with the

and aren't informed about

members and employees

club happenings. He also

and the conversations that

struggles with getting

he gets to have with other

weekly information from

people.

the management, for the

Do you consider
yourself a PR
Professional?
When I asked Brent if he
considered himself a PR
professional he stated that he
had not considered himself to
be a PR professional
because he saw a
professional in this field as
being someone who reached
out to the public and
communicated with the
public, but he saw himself

Brent has a very wide Age range in which he is trying to

reach with his communication, this causes him to have to
deal with many trends and issues pertaining to social
media and his online influence. Brent needs to be able to
stay relevant to the new members of a younger age that
are joining the club through online newsletters and his
online influence, while still being able to communicate
with the older members through paper copies and wordof-mouth.

rather just a communication

tool for his specific
establishment because he
only deals with a certain
crowd of people who are
members at Hillwood country
club.

Brent elsasser

Advice:
Brent thinks that it's important for new people of this field to take
the time to make sure that they are accurate. He thinks that this
is a skill that is being lost by many in the struggle to be fast and
efficient, that they aren't making sure they're completely correct
and arent truly represent themselves and their company in a
proper manner. He thinks simple things like grammatical errors
and improper phrasing are becoming far too common because
of the rush in society today.