Are you ever interested in wanting to become a civil servant to the public? It can be particularly difficult, John Mitchell served as a board member for Eugene Electric and Water Board (EWEB), one of the largest public utilities in Oregon. Being a public relations agent for government work can be challenging but Mitchell has valuable insight that could help anyone be prepared and ready for the field.
1) What roles did John serve within EWEB?
Mitchell had three vital important roles within EWEB: he was a newsletter editor, a media coordinator, and board member. Because of Mitchell’s prior experience as a writer for several publishers, EWEB assigned Mitchell as newsletter editor; therefore, he oversaw what information gets published in newsletters such as the price rates of water, electricity, and gas. As media coordinator, Mitchell had to coordinate with publishers when it comes to state certain issues like the price rates of electricity. As a board member of EWEB, Mitchell contributed creative input into building up a public need for environmental awareness, therefore, they set up several Earth Day events involving family activities and local events.
2) What challenges and problem does Mitchell face?
As public relations coordinator, one problem that Mitchell has to manage, is receiving calls during the middle of the night. Which means Mitchell will often receive a lot of calls from reporters involving late-night outages and storms. Another difficult aspect that John has to deal with, is employee communication; which means Mitchell has to inform employees about certain guidelines or valuable information as references. On the other hand, they are rogue employees that Mitchell has to deal with constantly namely leakers. If you work in a public institution, leaks will be inevitable because you cannot simply fire an employee for leaks. Therefore, Mitchell advises that any government institute should be ready to answer the truth.
3) What are important lessons to learn when coming into governmental relations?
According to Mitchell, the number one issue for government is transparency, meaning that as a government utility, they should always remain truthful with the public. The second most important is engagement, which means if you want people to care about certain issues then you need to actually reach for them. That means you can’t expect people to come to you because a lot of them won’t, and so in order for the government to make people care about issues, EWEB utilized a variety of public outreach tactics: such as public and face-to-face meetings, bill stuffers and polling people.
4) What are the common career paths related to this field?
Common career paths for governmental public relations would be state government, the federal government, lobbying and community coordination. One of Mitchell’s co-workers worked within intergovernmental relations, which meant they regularly communicated with other government workers such as the City of Eugene and Lane County. Mitchell stated that EWEB also has a communication coordinator, who works with several school districts about educating the young public about the importance of electric and water sustainability.
5) What steps should students take to build up their career path?
If you’re interested in taking government classes, Mitchell advises several classes and internships you can take for governmental relations. His first advice is that you take classes that specialize in research, photography, graphic design and public speaking. Research is particularly important because, for government research institutes, you will be polling data and other research institutes. Mitchell also said that photography class can also help visualize important issues, ideas, and concepts that need to be communicated to the public. Lastly, if you ever want to work in governmental relations, you should always be ready to talk privately and publically about certain ideas and details to various kinds of audiences. If you haven’t already, Mitchell also suggests taking membership at PRSSA, which would greatly expand your network and increase your chances for an internship.
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