On Thursday, November 15th, members of PRSSA toured Bellevue Communications Agency in the Bellevue Hotel. Philadelphia’s Bellevue Communications is a public relations agency specializing in crisis communications, media relations and issue management. Upon arrival, we entered the front lobby which was linked to a huge conference room. Bellevue is very formal and welcoming which allows for many people to input their ideas at meetings.
London Faust is their Account Executive, Digital Media Manager and a Temple PRSSA alumni. She explained Bellevue’s history and informed us it was started in 2000 by Kevin Feeley. The agency started out with two owners who wanted the company to expand more into the public relations world.
London advised us to explore all types of public relations work environments such as corporate, in-home, non-profit and agency. She recalls not experiencing a Corporate environment and said that it would be ideal to explore all aspects that public relations has to offer.
We went on the tour of the agency and visited the conference rooms, back offices and lobbying side. Bellevue Communications also has a focus on lobbying; seeking to influence political decisions on behalf of an individual, organization or group. Their big project right now is the electric scooters that Philadelphia is trying to introduce.
After the tour, we got to sit down with Samantha Byles, their account executive, and JJeff Jubelirer, Bellevue’s Vice President. They informed us how they chose two different career paths before landing at Bellevue. Samantha was a journalist major seeking to work for a newspaper company and Jeffrey was a Political Science major.
From this experience, Temple PRSSA has an outlook of how a Public Relations Agency base runs and the skills needed to succeed throughout our careers and life.
This blog post was written by Kali Lauer, General Body Member.