Marketing and Communications Team;
Scott Boyer, Mike Whitesides, Julene Reese, Donna Falkenborg, Dennis Hinkamp, Connary Fagen, Jake Neeley, Jonathan Griffiths, Lisa Woodworth
The USU Cooperative Extension marketing and communications team of Scott Boyer, Dennis Hinkamp, Mike Whitesides, Julene Reese, Donna Folkenborg, Connary Fagan, Jake Neeley, Jonathon Griffiths, and Lisa Woodworth have established a high level of marketing and communications excellence for Utah State University and Cooperative Extension. This peer recognized award winning team has helped raise the level of awareness of Cooperative Extension programs to audiences in both rural and urban settings. Their efforts have had a positive influence throughout the Western Region enhancing USU’s image as the premier educational outreach organization.
The marketing and communications team declared 2009 as the “Year of the Agent” in the Extension annual review. This publication highlights every Utah Cooperative Extension County Agent and the great programs Extension provides to Utah. In addition to traditional marketing and communication channels for Extension programs, this team reaches various target audiences through webcasts, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and YouTube videos. In an effort to reach diverse audiences, the team is working to provide some of these new e-communications in Spanish.
Partnerships play an important role for Cooperative Extension. This team is actively partnered with more organizations than can be completely listed, but here are a few: Association for Communications Excellence, Epsilon Sigma Phi, Utah Continuing Education Community of Practice, Utah Public Radio, Governor’s Office of Economic Development, the Utah Partners for Conservation and Development, Utah Tourism, and Senator Bennett’s Rural Business Conferences. All of these partnership efforts (and others) improve visibility for USU Cooperative Extension programs.
The marketing and communications team exemplifies “Cooperative” with an appreciated “can do” attitude. Their efforts have increased awareness of the value that Extension provides for individuals, families and communities in Utah. A key result of their work is an improved “legislative equity” for Utah State University Cooperative Extension. For these reasons, ESP recognize the Marketing and Communications group for the 2009 ESP Visionary Team Award.