Biography
Stephanie Colman has a 10-year history of progressive public relations experience, both in an agency and in-house setting. She has worked with a variety of clients including non-profit, education, healthcare and consumer. In 2002, she accepted the opportunity to turn a hobby into a career, forming a strategic partnership with a professional dog training school. Working as a pet dog trainer, she gained a solid education in learning theory and behavior modification. An unusual and bold career move, it afforded numerous opportunities to utilize her public relations and strategic planning skills to help grow and promote the business, while helping her develop solid presentation and instructional skills as she taught novel behaviors to two different species at the same time.
Throughout her time as a dog trainer, she never lost touch with what she considers to be her true passions: writing and helping others by working with non-profit organizations.
In 2011, she returned to school to earn a master’s degree in mass communication, earning her second degree from California State University, Northridge in 2013. Her thesis project sought to counter the hegemonic influence of the dominant hearing majority, by partnering with the Deaf Education And Families Project (DEAF Project) to organize a full-day retreat for hearing families raising deaf and hard-of-hearing children. (Once a PR person, always a PR person!)
Most recently, she is expanding her skills as a teacher of human students – specifically journalism students – by teaching beginning reporting classes at her alma mater.
Her varied background has helped her develop a multi-faceted skill set which includes audience-specific writing, media relations, community relations, graphic design, website management, event planning, social media and teaching. She excels in a fast-paced environment, is deadline oriented and enjoys opportunities to multi-task. Most importantly, she is committed to helping others and has a deep-rooted respect for those organizations and individuals who do the same.
In her down-time, she enjoys training her newly adopted dog, Saber, a career-change Search And Rescue dog from the Riverside Fire Department. Her previous dogs, Zoie, a Whippet, and Quiz, a Golden Retriever, were active in a variety of competitive dog sports ranging from lure coursing to obedience and agility.
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” -Woodrow Wilson