The PIO Podcast

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In this week's episode....

In this week's episode of the PIO Podcast, we meet PIO Marcedes Cashmer from the Beaumont (CA) Police Department. During our conversation, we discussed
How long has Marcedes been in the position as the PIO, how did she enter into the PIO field, and what is her background.

Marcedes provides some background information on the size of the community, population, and how many employees the Beaumont Police Department has.

We had a candid discussion on what challenges Marcedes experienced early in her career as a PIO, including all the other duties she has in her position. \
We discussed the pandemic and the impact the George Floyd protests had on the community and department messaging during those times.
How has the pandemic impacted your ability to connect with the community?

We also discussed any guidance Marcedes would give to someone who wants to get into the Public Information Officer Field?

Lastly, we always ask a few rapid-fire questions. We hope you enjoy this episode.


Marcedes LinkedIn Account

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Topics we discuss in this week's episode

• Amanda, you were one of four scholars who published an article titled “When Official Systems Overload: A Framework for Finding Social Media Calls for Help during Evacuations” (Link) where it was stated “the challenge is that as citizens turn to social media to request evacuation help, official emergency response organizations have limited knowledge or experience of information processing in this new media environment” If possible could you elaborate on this?  
•  To follow up on our previous question, are we better prepared to handle social media requests for help?
• Amanda discusses the filtering of data by Criteria and why is this important.
• Next we discussed the article Amanda published with Yajie Li and Peter Howe, titled, “Communicating Crisis with Persuasion: Examining Official Twitter Messages on Heat Hazards.”  It was stated that, ”However, little research attention has been paid to probing the content of crisis messages for its potential contribution to persuasion, especially when those messages are sent through social media.” Why is developing a message that is persuasive critical during these types of disasters? You use the term “Persuasive Message Factors”
• Amanda provides examples of PMF's.
• We discussed Amanda's development of an application for her thesis The article was titled, “Designing an Application for Social Media Needs in Emergency Public Information Work.” This article was about creating a software application that could meet the needs of Public Information Officers.

Amanda Hughes Email
Amanda's Website - http://amandaleehughes.com/

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Chelsea Kretz is the Media Supervisor for Parkland Hospital and a former PIO for the Grande Prairie Police Department. In this week's interview, we talk about ....

• Chelsea details how she wanted to be a sports reporter, ultimately working at a news station in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 
• The transition from the public sector to private sector public information. 
• Staffing is always an issue, we discuss the differences between the public sector and private sector staffing.   
• Chelsea is the chairperson of the North Texas PIO group. We discuss the group, membership, training, and how the group assists each other when needed.  
• We round out the discussion with advice for someone interested in getting into the field of public information 

As always we wrap it up with "rapid-fire" questions.

North Texas Public Information Officers Group
Chelsea's LinkedIn

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Megan Terlecky is the Information and Communications Manager for the Mesa County Sheriff's Office in Grand Junction, Colorado. Megan joined the Mesa County Sheriff's Office in 2016 after an Emmy award-winning career as News Anchor and television journalist. She has extensive experience in crisis communication and currently serves as the Chair of the Mesa County Joint Information System coordination group and a board member of Emergency Services Public Information Officers of Colorado.  Megan has led communications for Country Jam, the region's largest country music festival, the Pine Gulch Fire, and the West Salt Creek Landslide aftermath, to name a few.  Megan also strives to connect communication professionals from around the region, stressing the importance of working together during a crisis. 

Megan was most recently awarded 2021 Best Use of Social Media from the National Information Officers Association (NIOA) and 2020 Member of the Year, Mesa County Communication Officers Association (MCCOA). Megan earned her bachelor's degree in Television and Broadcast Journalism from Chapman University in Orange, California, and now enjoys Colorado life with her fiance and two dogs.   

Megans Email - [email protected]
Megans Twitter - @MTerlecky

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Crystal McCoy currently serves as the spokesperson for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Denver Field Division. She is a retired police officer where she spent the final years of her sworn career as the Senior Public Information Officer for the Aurora Colorado Police Department.

 Here career in law enforcement began as a dispatcher in Florida before she moved to Colorado in 2001. In Colorado, she worked as a contracted dispatcher with the General Services Administration, then Captain for the armed security force under the Department of Homeland Security.

 In 2005, she became a police officer for the Glendale Colorado Police Department where she served as an officer, detective, and sergeant as well as being the Terrorism Liaison Officer for the Colorado Information Analysis Center. In 2013, she continued her law enforcement career with the  Aurora Colorado Police Department where she served on patrol, in the Burglary Impact Group, on the Trauma Response Team, as a Task Force Officer on the Joint Terrorism Task Force with the FBI Denver Field Division, and spent her final years before retirement in 2021 as the Senior Public Information Officer under two different chief administrations.

 In addition to service in law enforcement she was a founding board member for two non-profit organizations dedicated to fallen officers and their survivors: Colorado Fallen Hero Foundation and Brotherhood for the Fallen. She received several awards and commendations in her law enforcement career. She is most proud of awards she received from the Colorado Avalanche for being the top non-profit organization multiple years in a row, the Core 4 Spirit of Community Service from the City of Aurora, and a 2019 Heartland Regional Emmy Award winning producer.

 Crystal earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at Central Christian College of Kansas, was born in Indiana, and now raises two young daughters with her husband in the Denver metro area.

@crystalmccoyco

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Pete Piringer is currently the Chief Spokesperson and External Affairs/Public Information Officer for the Montgomery County (Maryland) Fire and Rescue Service, a position he returned to several years ago (2014) after a 5 year hiatus which included stints as the Director of Communications for the City of Laurel, Maryland and the Office of the Mayor in Washington, DC., as well as Chief Spokesperson and Director of Public Information for the District of Columbia Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department (DCFD) in Washington, DC.  
 
Mr. Piringer has several decades of public safety experience and has served as the public information officer for several large departments in the Washington, DC metro area, including Montgomery County (MD) Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS), Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department (PGFD) and the Maryland State Police (MSP). He has represented local and/or state government during times of regional and national emergency incidents and other events, including the Washington, DC earthquake (2011); back-to-back major snowstorms (2010); New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina (2005); the Washington, DC metro area sniper attacks (2002) and the Pentagon attack on September 11, 2001, to name a few.


Mr. Piringer is president of the College Park (MD) Volunteer Fire Department where he has been a member for about 50 years. Additionally, he is a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and is an Adjunct Instructor for the National Emergency Training Center, Emergency Management Institute. In 2007, while the Public Information Officer for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue, he served on the Post Incident Fire Review Task Force for about 1 year investigating the nine (9) firefighter 'line-of-duty' deaths in Charleston, SC., as the Task Force Public Information Officer (PIO) & consultant to the City of Charleston, SC. 

To contact Pete you can email him at [email protected]

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At 18 I joined the Israeli army as press liaison, and served on the ground from the Gaza strip to the Lebanon border and even in Haiti as a reservist following the 2010 earthquake. The lessons I learned from my military service about crisis, teamwork, and creativity are hard to put in words, but I take them with me to every project I work on.

I went on to complete a B.A., in Government studies with a major in Counterterrorism in Israel, and in 2007 came to the USA to begin my American adventure.

I’ve completed my Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, writing my graduate thesis on proposed social media use for the NYPD and interning at the NYPD office of Management, Analysis, and planning. During my time at the Kennedy School, I was fortunate to receive fellowships from the program in criminal justice policy and the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International affairs.

In 2014 I joined the NYPD full-time to implement my academic research, and in 2016 was promoted to Director of Social Media and Digital Strategy.

During my time at the NYPD, I built the entire digital communications strategy from the ground up, transforming the voice of the largest police department in the country. It was quite a journey for a department that had a strict top-down communications strategy, but eventually, I moved the elephant’s feet and helped introduce to New Yorkers a personal, authentic, and localized voice that still speaks today. My team and I oversaw the launch of over 200 new social media accounts, amassed over 1 million followers, Wrote the NYPD  crisis communications strategy, initiated a new “Digital Communication Officer” role in every command in the city, wrote a comprehensive training guide, and education curriculum, and produced viral videos with millions of views, generating hundreds of positive news articles.

I’m an annual guest lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School Communications Program, and frequently talk and write about social media, police, public safety, and communications.

Website for Skidrow Run Club

Yael Bar Tur's Website

Twitter  @Yaelbt

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Our premiere sponsor, Social News Desk, has an exclusive offer for PIO Podcast listeners. Head over to socialnewsdesk.com/pio to get three months free when a qualifying agency signs up.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Our premiere sponsor, Social News Desk, has an exclusive offer for PIO Podcast listeners. Head over to socialnewsdesk.com/pio to get three months free when a qualifying agency signs up.

Send us Fan Mail

Mr. Probolsky is President of Probolsky Research, a full service opinion research firm specializing in market research and opinion research on elections and public policy, working on behalf of business, government, non-profit, special interest and media clients.

Mr. Probolsky has acted as pollster and strategic advisor on hundreds of successful crisis communications and public affairs projects, local, county and statewide initiatives and candidate campaigns as well as citizen outreach and education efforts. Additionally, Mr. Probolsky has been a key advisor to the firm’s clients on matters of public policy, legislation and business strategy.

Probolsky was both a planning and finance commissioner for the City of Irvine where he oversaw and approved billions of dollars in private development and public infrastructure projects. As a past chairman of the Irvine Valley College Foundation, he has overseen the fundraising and the award of hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to students and funding for college police. He was also a member of the Orange County Waste & Recycling Commission where he oversaw landfills, recycling programs, waste hauling companies and power generating facilities. As a member of the Orange County Transportation Authority’s Environmental Mitigation and Oversight Committee, he oversaw the expenditure of over $175 million dollars in public transportation funds.

He previously served as a board member and development committee chairman for Jewish Family Service of Orange County, a non-profit organization that serves families in need, and volunteered for nearly eight years with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department as a spokesperson.

Probolsky formerly served as a member of the Policy Committee on Energy and the Environment of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Probolsky’s research and commentary has been published in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, Riverside Press-Enterprise, The Chicago Sun-Times, the Orange County Register, and Politico, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Website  - Probolksy Research
Adam's Twitter - @AdamProbolsky

Support the show

Our premiere sponsor, Social News Desk, has an exclusive offer for PIO Podcast listeners. Head over to socialnewsdesk.com/pio to get three months free when a qualifying agency signs up.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Our premiere sponsor, Social News Desk, has an exclusive offer for PIO Podcast listeners. Head over to socialnewsdesk.com/pio to get three months free when a qualifying agency signs up.