Professional Achievement Awards
To learn more about the Edward L Bernays Award and how to submit nominations here.
2023 Edward L. Bernays Award Recipient
Carol Higgins Taylor, MA, APROwner/FounderBryant Street Public Relations, LLC
The 2023 Edward Bernays Achievement Award winner is known for her outstanding leadership, integrity, skills, and commitment to excellence in the public relations profession. She has been described as the “consummate PR professional” “a joy to work with,” and “one of the most dedicated and loyal people I have ever known.”
Her passion for her community is how her PR career started. She began by volunteering for the Eastern Maine AIDS Network, after losing a friend to HIV, while she was still a journalism student. As her PR skills grew, so did the Agency’s needs and she was hired as staff.
In 2,000 she became the director of communications at Eastern Area Agency on Aging. She managed all communications and oversaw fundraising campaigns. She also became the voice for seniors in the area as she produced a weekly column for the Bangor Daily News and hosted Senior Talk on WVOM, 103.9, which she continues to do today. Her love of animals inspired her to start the Agency’s Furry Friends Food Bank to provide donated pet food to low income seniors. She established the Senior Expo in 2006 with 250 attendees and grew it to 2,600 attendees when she left. That’s an impressive 940% increase!
In 2014, Carol established Bryant Street Public Relations, LLC, which quickly became a success as she continued her work with senior agencies and healthcare organizations.
Throughout her career she has served her community. She provides pro bono services to Mountains Inc, an animal rescue and the Zachery Project, a charity working to increase awareness of addiction. She has volunteered with FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program for Penobscot County and the UMaine Center on Aging’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program Advisory Council.
She has served on the MPRC board and co-chaired the APR committee where she mentored five people as they earned their APRs. She currently serves on MPRC’s professional development committee.
Nationally, she is the chair-elect of the Public Relations Society of America’s Independent Practitioners Alliance Executive Committee where she is known for being the first to offer an encouraging word or a virtual shoulder of support to colleagues.
It is that mentoring that university instructors most appreciate about Carol. She can always be counted on to provide counsel and support in any situation. Her mentorship and support has been transformational for the next generation of professionals. She has taken on numerous interns over the years ,especially those students who might need a little extra support.
“One of the first students I sent to Carol was naïve, nervous, and not ready for the work force, not at all,” said Nancy Roberts, Marketing Communications Program, New England School of Communications, Husson University. “One day she showed up at work with her pants on backwards. And Carol had to pull her aside and tell her, ‘honey, your pants are on backwards.’” The student fixed her pants…and took the advice of her new mentor again and again. Carol nurtured and encouraged her and gave her so much confidence that she graduated and immediately opened her own agency, not in Bangor, not in Portland, but in her hometown of NYC. She is just one example of Carol’s transformational magic where she has given these students the skills, experience, and confidence to pursue their dreams. She has been a friend and mentor to so many of us throughout her career. Carol uses her amazing sense of humor, warmth, sincerity, and ability to truly relate to others to bring out the best in all of us, said Roberts.
Congratulations to Carol Higgins Taylor on winning this well-deserved recognition of the 2023 Edward L. Bernays Achievement Award.
MPRC President’s Award
2023 Recipient: Rebecca Emery, APR
PAST WINNERS
2021 – Susan Spruce, APR
2020 – Michelle Clements
2019 – Eric Blom
2018 – Paul Badeau
2017 – Nancy Robert, APR
2016 – John Lamb, APR
2015 – Linda Varrell, APR
2014 – No submissions received
2013 – No submissions received
2012 – Susan Tompkins
2011 – Nancy Marshall
2010 – Jon Paradis
2009 – John Diamond
2008 – Russ Donahue
2007 – Wayne Clark
2006 – Dan Marois
2005 – Midge Vreeland, APR
2004 – Michael Bourque, APR
2003 – Tony Payne
2002 – Kathleen Duris Tarbox, APR
2001 – Linda Frechette
2000 – Judy Katzel, APR
1999 – Stephen H. McCausland
1998 – Mark Ishkanian, APR
1997 – Dick Dyer, APR
1996 – Meredith Strang Burgess
1995 – Deborah Hammond
1994 – Susan Swain
1993 – Edward O’Meara
1992 – Leslie Gall
1991 – Shelley Dunn
1990 – Robert Caswell
1988 – Dan Davidson, APR
1987 – Chip Carey
1986 – James Harnar, APR
1985 – John McCatherin
1984 – Bill Harkins & Kate Perry
1983 – Ron Palmquist