by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Kathy Harper is excited about the opportunity that knocked on her door, but it comes with some bittersweet moments attached.
Friday is the last day at the Jacksonville & the Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau for Harper, who has been director of communications for a little more than a year. She basically has been in charge of public relations and media relations.
Her new job at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida will be in employee communications, “helping the internal group get their message out,” she said.
“It is one of those bittersweet things,” Harper added. “It’s a great new opportunity, one of those things you can’t turn down.
“But I am definitely sad to leave all the great people I’ve worked with. I really did enjoy what I was doing.”
The Jacksonville native received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Brigham Young University, her father’s alma mater.
BYU was “really fun,” she said, particularly the skiing classes she took to fulfill the physical education requirement.
“We skied at Sundance, which is owned by Robert Redford,” Harper recalled. “We even saw him on the slopes a few times.
“One time he skied right by me in the middle of class, and I had no idea until he had already gone by.”
After graduation, she interned at Blue Cross Blue Shield, “compiling clipping reports and basically doing whatever they told me to do.”
She also acquired experience in internal communications when she worked for Delta Airlines in Atlanta. The Technical Operations Division there kept the communication lines open for about 11,000 employees around the world.
During 2002, Harper got the opportunity to work in the press operations Department for the Olympics in Salt Lake City. It was a hectic, rewarding experience, setting up media facilities and services for seven of the sports.
“I also ran one of the venues, Soldier Hollow, which had cross-country skiing, biathlon (cross-country skiing and rifle
shooting) and the Nordic combined (cross-country skiing and
jumping),” she said. “It was
awesome.
“The most medals were given out at my venue — one-third of all the medals from the Salt Lake Olympics. So it was pretty busy.”
One of the most important, and rewarding, parts of Harper’s job at the Convention and Visitors Bureau has been to spread the word about what the city has to offer for the Super Bowl and beyond.
“The message is definitely getting out, so it’s fairly hectic in the office right now,” she said. “Especially as we get closer to the Super Bowl, the message will get out more and more.”
Because of the many implications for the future, the way the word is being spread has almost become as important as the word itself.
“I think the great thing about how his message is getting out is there’s a lot of coordinated effort between the City, the Host Committee, the CVB and the Chamber of Commerce,” she said. “We’re all working together to make the most of this opportunity that’s coming up next year.
“I really think that’s made a huge difference in the clarity of the message we’re getting out. We’re all on the same page, and we’re helping each other out. That’s so much better than each of us doing it separately.
“It’s a great thing the city has going for it — all of us talking and working together.”