Kathy Gronau, CreativePR’s founder and head honcho, leads the company’s acquisition, promotion, production, conference-organizing, accounting and global networking. Widely known and respected in the public radio world, a former board member of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), a commentator for various professional publications and phone-pals with just about every programmer in the biz, she also holds a Ph.D. in Modern Cosmopolitan Lunch.
Helen Peppard’s background includes college degrees in theatre and music, as well as extensive experience in public radio, journalism and public relations. Her foreground is a little blurry without her glasses. She has been a writer for the L.A. Daily News and Daily Variety, as well as a public relations rep for the U.C.L.A. Performing Arts Center. Witty, warm and charming, she will still straight-arm a photographer; and bad grammar is something up with which she will not put.
Wayne Knickel’s public relations career has hopped from historic Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., to Washington’s equally historic National Theatre, to Baltimore’s Mechanic Theatre and Pier Six Concert Pavilion, then to New York, as a representative of touring Broadway hits. CPR is the beneficiary of Wayne’s decision to trade Gotham’s tensions and icy winters for SoCal’s freeways, pollution, and earthquakes. Not on his resume: standing in for Ron Howard at Oscar rehearsals.
wayne@creativepr.org
Mark Bramhall is an actor/writer who has won local and national accolades for his performances, which include many audio books. A POEM member (Garrison Keillor’s Professional Organization of English Majors), he actually has a Harvard diploma stashed somewhere. Thus armed, he has also worked as a carpenter, printer, miner, foundryman, autoworker, filmstripper (not that kind) and telemarketer (that kind). He is the author of four daughters and a small amount of published print.
mark@creativepr.org
Jazz Beitler loves Fine Art and trash TV. He holds more degrees than busted radiator. As a member of the first graduating class of Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, he quickly exhausted all available courses, and pursued advanced independent studies with his professors. His tech and entertainment chops have already produced a near brush with The Big Time, but, luckily for us, he escaped with his tax bracket intact. From phones to Photoshop, he’s our newest ace.
Cleo is an extremely sensitive person disguised as a dog. She probably has a slim volume of verse buried, forever unpublished, in one of the potted plants beside a rawhide chewy. She has a long, pointy muzzle which widens a lot when she smiles, and eyes that can convey “Feed Me” at 50 yards. She regularly chairs our morning meetings, and always protects us from the Fire-Breathing Mailman Dragon.
cleo@creativepr.org
Max our newest staff member, is a Lhasa Apso /Terrier hybrid, about the same size as his name, with a fudge nose, hypnotic, humanoid, amber eyes, a flouncy pom-pom of caramel hair and an easy, sociable attitude which particularly endears him to Cleo, who picked him out. As soon as he passes his housebreaking final, he’ll be taking calls.
max@creativepr.org
