Meet 2023-2024 AWC Detroit Board Members
We asked our new board members to share with us the most gratifying project they have worked on in their careers. Check out what they had to say!
Laura Oliveto, President
The most gratifying project I’ve worked on has nothing to do with my eventual “career.”
Having attended Wayne State for theater, and worked at the Bonstelle Theater and the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, MA, I thought I was going to have a career in theater. Instead my career path veered to communications and as theater is the highest form of two-way communication with an audience, it actually wasn’t such a divergence.
I joined Stagecrafters, formerly the Clawson Players, on a fluke. A guy in one of my theater classes asked me to go see the comedy, Plaza Suite and in the program was an audition notice for the musical “Mame.” I was a dancer, so I figured why not. I got cast and got hooked.
I ended up on stage, backstage and on the board and by the time we bought and renovated the Baldwin Theater, I was the Stagecrafters president. The Baldwin, known mid-century as the Washington (Movie) Theater, was scheduled for demolition as it was a roof-less, burned out hulk and an eyesore in a city that was on the upswing. We were a community theater troupe of volunteers with a lot of gumption and a grand vision. We had outgrown our converted church on Bowers Street in Clawson, so we took a leap of faith.
For 18 months, dozens of us sweated and toiled every night and every weekend, climbing scaffolding to clean, plaster and paint the place, which today is a crown jewel in downtown Royal Oak.
I am extremely proud of the Baldwin Theater and was honored recently to take part in its 100th anniversary celebration. In 1922, the Baldwin opened as a vaudeville theater and now it is an historic landmark that has been brought back to life.
Deniella Ortiz-Lalain
Immediate Past President, Secretary & Treasurer
There are several I can think of, yet the one that stands out is creating a winning awards application that earned my employer, OpTech, the coveted Crain’s Cool Places to Work honor. This award is one of the most difficult to achieve; it has very high standards for what differentiates your company from the plethora of accomplished companies in metro Detroit. On top of this we missed making the cut the first time we applied. Yet I did not give up and the second time around I applied creative writing techniques I learned from my AWC colleagues and webinars, which helped me produce an exemplary portrait of the company and earn this attractive award showcasing OpTech as a leading-edge workplace for its employees.
Barbara Krajenke
Director, Marketing – Social Media & Digital Content
Communications is my wheelhouse. I enjoy pretty much all the aspects; marketing, strategy, planning, reaching the audience, writing, creativity and collaboration, (just to name a few). But my most gratifying project was completing my thesis about social media marketing for my master’s in journalism degree. Completing my thesis was a requirement to graduate, but it also let me run with an idea, research and share it. The skills I gained from completing my thesis gave me an understanding of audience behavior and preferences and using social media as an effective strategy to reach the audience and get them to engage. These principles were new when I studied them but are still relevant today. The personal skills I gained were leadership, confidence and trusting myself. My thesis has gained the attention of other researchers to where I meet the threshold to collect royalties. Even though it’s a very minimal payment, the important part is that my hard work is still getting noticed and being used almost 10 years after it was published.
Robin O’Grady
Director, Marketing – Campaigns & Programs
Writing an investigative piece for The Gleaner daily newspaper when I worked as a creative director at an international advertising agency in Kingston, Jamaica. As a volunteer for the Jamaica Foundation for Children, I toured the country’s only mental health facility and was shocked by the deplorable conditions children and adults were enduring. It was rewarding to bring national attention to the substandard living conditions suffered by the country’s most vulnerable population.
Lisa Becker Campbell
Director Member Retention
Describing a most gratifying project may seem simple, but it is complicated for me. “Gratifying” has many varying definitions, and I am fortunate to have had many rewarding projects. Seeing my first byline in a state-wide magazine was ‘felicitous’ (one of several synonyms for ‘gratifying’ according to Merriam-Webster). But that moment certainly isn’t the most gratifying in terms of being truly ‘rewarding.’ Much more ‘fulfilling’ is that I’ve been able to generate publicity for numerous worthy entities: small business owners, nonprofits, artists, destinations, and causes. As a columnist, I’ve been honored to tell the heartwarming stories of:
- First-time chaplains at a fire station
- A family who built a golf course from the ground up on their failing dairy farm
- A gallery connecting artists to sell objects of beauty sourced locally
- Grass roots causes that directly impact lives, and much more
I even found it gratifying to apply for a fellowship that I did not get. I had invested hours in researching and proposing the indoctrination of a “cyclical economy” that would overhaul the course of our waste/recycling/consumerism/manufacturing/delivery. Though unsuccessful, the application process proved ‘heartening.’
Tarana “Ronnie” Hammond
Director, Member Recruitment
I have had the pleasure of working on many gratifying projects in my career but the one that stands out the most is the mentorship program I have designed for AWC Detroit. The mentorship program is designed to provide our AWC Detroit members with an invaluable opportunity to gain wisdom, knowledge, and guidance from other AWC members who are communication experts and well-seasoned who will share their expert knowledge and skills while providing encouragements to advance our mentees.