I’m Denise Graveline, and I call my communications consultancy don’t get caught because I focus on making sure you don’t get caught unprepared, speechless, without a message or behind the curve. It’s an approach that's all about preparing to communicate clearly and well--and one that I honed while directing communications and media relations for some of the largest nonprofits in the world, and for a U.S. federal agency. For The Capital Buzz, I'm primarily the back-of-the-house page administrator, handling the RSS feeds, layouts, and comments moderation. I've also taught most of our team here to blog, and am happy to help them show off their talents. You can find out more about my other blogs below.
Specifically, my experience includes:
• Directing media relations and authoring key publications for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted to health and health care. While at the Foundation, I also worked extensively on developing the first philanthropic grant programs to fund AIDS health services and prevention. I'm still active in philanthropic circles through the Communications Network in Philanthropy, and I was a founding member of Funders Concerned About AIDS.
• Directing communications for two of the largest scientific professional societies: The American Association for the Advancement of Science and its journal, Science, and for the American Chemical Society. As a result, I’ve worked with every discipline of science to translate technical research findings for the public and the news media and trained thousands of scientists to do so. Today, I continue that work with AAAS by creating and facilitating workshops for its national program, Communicating Science: Tools for Scientists and Engineers.
• Serving as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications, Education and Public Affairs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, overseeing five divisions including the press office, communications planning, constituent relations, broadcasting and publications; serving as a primary public and media spokesperson for the Agency; serving on the White House Council on Women; and coordinating the creation of the agency's first web site. As a result, I’ve worked on every major environmental and public health issue, and served as a liaison with Congress and the White House, while overseeing day-to-day management of a public affairs operation with a $15 million budget.
• Working as a magazine journalist, editor and developer, on a freelance basis and for Whittle Communications, which published Esquire and more than 30 other national magazines. I covered parenting, medicine, business, film and more.
Today, my consulting focuses on communications strategies, training and message or content development for universities, nonprofits, corporations, federal agencies and more. I’m adept and active in social media, and author two blogs: the don’t get caught blog on communications and social media strategies, and The Eloquent Woman, a blog on women and public speaking. I also manage The Eloquent Woman on Facebook, a thriving community for discussing public speaking issues, and the don't get caught page on Facebook. You can find and follow me on Twitter, on Facebook and on LinkedIn, and I’m always trying new social media options so I can help my clients do the same. (See a widget with my Twitter feed, below.)
I’m a native of New Britain, Connecticut; a graduate of Boston University’s School of Public Communication (now its College of Communications) with a degree in journalism; and winner of Washington Women in Public Relations’ 2002 Washington PR Woman of the Year award. In addition to WWPR, I’m a member of the National Association of Science Writers; the International Association of Business Communicators; the D.C. Science Writers Association; Science Writers in New York; the Federal Communicators Network; and the Communications Network in Philanthropy. I live in Washington, D.C., am a beginning guitarist who plays an amazing Martin D18-GE, make art—mostly collage and assemblage—and travel extensively.
