Kate has spent her career focusing on telling stories to help companies and organizations reach their strategic goals.
Now principal strategist and owner of Piper & Gold Public Relations, Kate works with clients ranging from Michigan State University to entrepreneurial start-ups helping them tell their stories. She specializes in incorporating digital media into traditional public relations practices. In addition to teaching advertising, digital media, public relations and consumer behavior at Michigan State University, Lansing Community College and Sienna Heights University, she has spoken at conferences around the country on the importance of strategy in social media, building community relations programs and approaching media relations with a customer service attitude. Her background in leadership and coalition building have honed her collaborative approach to problem solving and her background in strategy work helps her to understand clients’ needs as she represents them in the community.
For nearly eight years, Kate served as chief communications officer at Capital Area Michigan Works!, a $20+ million government workforce development agency, where she received local and regional recognition in crisis communications for the 2005 collapse of Capital Area Michigan Works!’ Lansing Service Center. While there, she built an award-winning communications program ranging from local public relations to national legislative advocacy. During her tenure as CCO, she worked with U.S. News and World Report, USA Today, National Public Radio, CNN, the New York Times and international media outlets from France, Japan and Denmark.
In 2005, Kate was the youngest professional in the nation to receive the prestigious Accreditation in Public Relations from the Universal Accreditation Board. In 2010, she was named by Greater Lansing Woman as one of the 10 most influential women on Twitter. In 2012, she was recognized by the Lansing Regional Chamber and Grand River Connection as one of its, “10 Over the Next Ten: The Next Generation of Business Leaders.”
Kate currently serves as a national assembly delegate of the Central Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and is a past president. She also sits on the boards of Capital Region Community Foundation and Impression 5 Science Center. She is the chair of the NextGen@Wharton Steering Committee for the Wharton Center for Performing Arts, where she also sits on the center’s Advisory Council. In 2009, she helped to incorporate the education-focused nonprofit Keep Learning… Our Future Depends On It, with which she is still engaged.
Kate holds a Master of Science in integrated marketing communications from Eastern Michigan University. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary humanities from Michigan State University, where she also teaches Writing for PR.
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