This is another in a series on area executives and political and community leaders who have played prominent roles in the development of Downtown or Jacksonville as a whole over the years. Some are still in the area, working or retired or a bit of both. Some have moved away and are working in other areas of the state or country. The series continues with former Super Bowl Host Committee member Heather Surface.
by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
What she did then:
• Chief of Marketing and Communications at the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission
• Communications Director for the Super Bowl Host Committee
What she’s doing now:
• Surface Communications, a full-service advertising and public relations agency
• Marketing Committee chair, Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens
• Women’s Board of Wolfson Children’s Hospital
• Chair, 2008 Red Rose Ball
“I have learned that life has a tendency to work out the way it’s supposed to,” said Heather Surface, reflecting on her career so far in media and communications.
Born in Nashville, Surface arrived in Jacksonville (via Jackson, Miss.) at age 15. After graduating from the University of North Florida in 1991 with a degree in communications she considered a career in law but said after a few months working in a law office, “I found out I didn’t want to be an attorney.”
Surface began her career in media and communications as a free-lance scout in the motion picture and television industry. When the television series “Point Man” was filmed in Jacksonville, she was the assistant location manager.
That experience and the contacts she made in the local creative community led to a public relations specialist position with the City’s Film & Television Commission, which was eventually part of the reorganization of agencies that created the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission (JEDC).
Surface was promoted to JEDC public relations manager and in 2000 was named chief of marketing and communications.
“While I was with the JEDC, I got involved with the City’s Super Bowl bid application,” she said. “It was an exciting time. The Dalton Agency packaged the applications and created a direct-mail campaign that targeted the NFL owners before their meeting in Atlanta when our applications would be up for the vote. Once a week before the vote, the owners would get something new in the mail selling Jacksonville as a Super Bowl city.
“We had Jim Steeg (NFL senior vice president for special events) in town and took him on a helicopter tour. He looked around and told us everything was beautiful but we just didn’t have enough hotel rooms.”
The Super Bowl bid application committee refused to take “no” for an answer and worked for two years to bring enough cruise ships to the Downtown riverfront to make the hotel room issue a moot point. After Jacksonville was selected as the site for Super Bowl XXXIX, Surface remained with the JEDC for a year before joining the Host Committee as Communications Director.
The effort grew from “about a dozen volunteers to more than 10,000,” she said. “When it was time for the game, it was years of working and planning coming to fruition. The week before the game everything came to a crescendo. I remember we were getting literally hundreds of phone calls at the headquarters every day. Then the game was over and it was completely silent in the office.”
As it turned out, life after Super Bowl would put Surface back on the path she originally followed.
“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was offered some jobs, but nothing really struck me, so I took on some free-lance jobs,” she said.
With what Surface described as “a tremendous amount of talent in our community that has opted out of the corporate world,” she soon found it was possible to work as much as she wanted and tailor a staff to fit each assignment or project. That’s the way it has worked for the past three years at Surface Communications. Past and present clients include small businesses, development companies, financial institutions, law firms, political candidates and non-profit organizations.
“I have learned so much about so many types of businesses,” said Surface. “But it’s not my goal to be a big agency. I have a husband and two sons and I appreciate being able to spend time with them and have that balance in my life,” said Surface.
She has also found time to volunteer with a variety of organizations including co-chairing the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens Ball and chairing this year’s Red Rose Ball, which raised more than $1 million for St. Vincent’s Hospital.
”If I had a regular job I don’t know if I would have the time to do those things,” said Surface. “I’m in a really good place right now.”
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