Category: PUBLIC-RELATIONS

         SENIOR FOOD DEFENSE ANALYST       Summary     Experience as public relations professional, strategist, analyst, and publicist. Strong influencing skills to achieve positive outcomes in a wide variety of areas. Creative and strategic thinker to develop results-driven programs. Excellent organizational skills and able to adapt to multiple assignments and deadlines in a frequently-changing environment. Effective ability to develop and maintain extensive network of contacts. Significant experience generating, implementing, and managing strategic programs and promotional outreach. Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills with strong attention to detail. Capability to work independently and with a variety of partners to achieve goals.        Highlights          Extensive experience conducting public relation activities to promote effective  communications with the media and stakeholders. Developed strategic outreach plans for significant programs to include public speaking opportunities, media articles, guidance materials, distribution, talking points, and presentations.   Project Manager for numerous initiatives to include assessments conducted on food commodity systems. Perform oversight and leadership of the process and review of written reports to assure that they meet the operational goals and objectives of the assessment. Utilize outcomes to develop and execute mitigation strategies and outreach and training initiatives by building a collaborative environment with appropriate stakeholders.      Served as USDA Detailee to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate's Infrastructure Countermeasures Unit as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) providing direction, guidance, and technical assistance on food defense issues. Initiated and implemented mitigation strategies and outreach activities for multiple stakeholders, domestic and international, that benefit both agencies' missions.               Accomplishments      Serve as the Agency lead on an interagency team designing and conducting a global food defense outreach initiative to promote awareness and implementation of food defense measures by providing technical assistance to foreign governments, academia, and industry. This initiative has been highly successful in building capacity and sustainability at country and regional levels around the world. In environment of budgetary cuts, initiated and successfully proposed and acquired $230,000 in funding for major international initiative, which had not been accomplished previously. Received a prestigious team award from the Food and Drug Administration for work on this initiative.       Experience      Senior Food Defense Analyst     Dec 2003   to   Current      Company Name   －   City  ,   State     Serve as Subject Matter Expert and Detailee to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for initiation and implementation of outreach activities for supporting countermeasures to prevent intentional contamination of the food supply.  Agency lead on an interagency team responsible for designing and conducting training and outreach to foreign governments, academia, and industry. Acted as communications liaison for internal teams.  Successfully initiated integration of the FBI as a partner resulting in law enforcement elements and funding added to initiative.  With increased budget constraints by all federal agencies, manage and coordinate the effort to promote international outreach Established long-range objectives and developed innovative strategies to help achieve them to attract additional federal agencies as partners for future support and funding. Developed the strategy, proposal, and supporting materials, to include proposed budgets.  A leading expert on policies and strategies to address global supply chain vulnerabilities.  Influenced senior leadership resulting in significant funding for major international initiative  Established long-range objectives and developed innovative strategies to help achieve them..  Routinely conduct senior level briefings to intelligence and law enforcement, foreign, academic, and industry officials; and congressional staff.  Managed the editorial content, design and distribution of the external agency newsletter.  Cultivated positive relationships with stakeholders through public relations campaigns. Develop outreach materials for various audiences, training, public speaking engagements, media coverage, and distribution mechanisms.  Research and author reports, articles, issue papers, and talking points for senior officials, and respond to congressional and White House inquiries.  Demonstrate advanced interpersonal skills by leading intra- and interagency work groups to build partnerships to develop, coordinate, and implement initiatives.  Analyze information from a variety of sources to advise senior agency leadership on short-term and long-range strategic planning and policy development.  Serve as liaison to the intelligence and law enforcement communities, which have strengthened communication and coordination programs.  Project Manager on activities to develop and execute strategies, outreach, and training initiatives.  Created information sharing agreements with international partners to facilitate the mutual exchange of classified information and coordination of activities to leverage resources.  Developed communications strategies and programs, including project time lines. Conferred with production, graphic design and web-design personnel to coordinate production of communications materials.         Public Affairs Specialist     Jan 2000   to   Nov 2003      Company Name   －   City  ,   State     Conducted public relation activities to promote effective communications with the media and constituent groups.  Marianne L.  Elbertson Page 2 Managed preparation and publication of weekly newsletter.  Served as Agency lead representative to develop emergency communication protocols with the USDA Office of Communications that is used by all agencies within the Department for communicating with the media in the event of a significant incident.  Coordinated and supported agency communication activities and constituent outreach campaigns.  Effectively responded to constituent and media inquiries.  Established and maintained effective working relationships with all involved stakeholders.  Supported various needs of organization to include speech writing, press releases, talking points, presentations, and responses to congressional inquiries.         Government Relations Associate     Jan 1995   to   Dec 1999      Company Name   －   City  ,   State     Assisted Director and Manager of Regulatory Affairs in promoting and advancing company's interests in federal government issues.  Worked with appropriate government officials to influence legislation and regulations for company's desired outcomes.  Conducted analysis of potential legislation and regulations, and coordination of research projects to support company goals.         Public Affairs Specialist     Jan 1990   to   Apr 1994      Company Name   －   City  ,   State     Effectively responded to media inquiries.  Researched and wrote complex talking points, issue papers, news releases, fact sheets, and reports.  Routinely interacted with member-company executives and representatives in support of organization mission and goals.         Assistant Publicist     Aug 1987   to   Mar 1989      Company Name   －   City  ,   State     Researched and pitched story ideas and tour publicity for a variety of clients.  Worked with management to identify trends and developments that might influence public relation decisions and strategies.  Drafted media relations materials to include pitch letters, press releases, media alerts, profiles, and press kit materials.  Interacted with clients regularly to refine strategic media plans.  Organized and oversaw photo shoots, public appearances, promo shoots, features on television profile shows, and talk show appearances.  Used knowledge of clients' media goals to identify appropriate media forum.  Established and maintained cooperative relationships with various regional and national print and broadcast media to support desired coverage.         Administrative Assistant     Jul 1986   to   Aug 1987      Company Name   －   City  ,   State     Prepared documents for purchasers of packages of syndicated television shows owned by Universal.  Completed assignments on-time with high accuracy rate.         Education      Graduate Certificate  ,   Washington Representatives Program   1994     George Washington University   －   City  ,   State             Bachelor of Arts  ,   Radio/Television/Film Production   1986     University of Maryland   －   City  ,   State             Interests      Member of the Daughters of the American Revolution  Member of the Colonial Dames 17th Century Society  Former President of the Mount Vernon Terrace Community Association        Skills     Self starter  Effective strategic planning  Strong leadership skills  Excellent relationship building skills  Resourceful and persistent       Additional Information       PROFESSIONAL TRAINING:    		Detailed list available upon request       PROFESSIONAL AWARDS:   (Detailed list available upon request)   For Leadership and Persistent Effort to Negotiate and Implement a Cooperative Activity Agreement with Canada  FDA Group Recognition Award for outstanding Leadership and Contributions toward Increasing Awareness of and Building Global Capacity for Food Defense through Outreach, Education, and Collaboration  Exemplary Efforts in Securing a Joint Project Arrangement with the UK Food Standards Agency  CIA Outstanding Contribution on Collection Issues of Critical Importance to National Security  Developing the Framework for Intelligence Information Sharing for the FSIS Office of Food Defense  Initiatives Fostering Collaboration with Intelligence Community including MOUs with CBP and TSA  Administrator's Award for Excellence: Work on food security intelligence and communication initiatives