Member Spotlight: Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA
Posted on Mar. 30, 2022 / Member News / Subscribe 0
This Member Spotlight profiles Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA, who is adjunct professor of communication at the University of Tampa and faculty adviser for the University of Tampa PRSSA chapter. He joined PRSA Tampa Bay in 2017, first joined PRSA in 1981, and served in a number of PRSA roles on a national, district and chapter level. Nationally, he serves as chair of the PRSA Board of Ethics and Professional Standards, and he previously served on the PRSA Board of Directors, Board of Ethics and Professional Standards, and Board of Directors for the Educators Academy. Regionally, he served on the Board of Directors for the PRSA Northeast District, a member of the Board of Directors for the PRSA Boston chapter, and a member of the Board of Directors for the PRSA Hawaii chapter. And for PRSA Tampa Bay, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors, ethics officer for the chapter, and chair of the Students and New Professionals Committee.
- First news publication you read in the morning?
I gravitate to the Tampa Bay Times first followed immediately by a look at Google News for an overview of major global and national events that took place while I was sleeping.
- First public relations job?
I didn’t realize it at the time, but my first public relations job came about while I was in the Air Force and found myself doing publicity for a series of audiovisual libraries that I managed in the U.S. and the Philippines. My first “official” public relations job was immediately after I got out of the Air Force and landed a position as a U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command public affairs intern, and the rest is history!
Teaching the course “English as a Second Language” to the Vietnamese military while in the Air Force in Saigon, Vietnam, where I was stationed from 1969 to 1970 and 1971 to 1972.
And you thought teaching was tough! Here I am in 1971 on duty as a security guard after having taught English in the morning in Saigon. Fortunately, I only had one or two close calls – a bomb in a bathroom and a suspicious package in a classroom – and the rest of the time was spent simply watching to make sure our students and faculty stayed safe.
- Most important career mentor, and why?
Clinton Parks, my U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command internship supervisor. Clint kept in touch and was always a phone call away when I had a question or a problem, and to this day I try to emulate his kindness.
- Most rewarding accomplishment in public relations?
As communication director for the Blood Bank of Hawaii. I developed programming that increased active blood donor participation and ensured that the patients of Hawaii would have blood available should they need it.
Another rewarding accomplishment was having the honor to serve on the national PRSA Board of Directors, in 2012.
- Best advice you’ve received in public relations?
What I tell my students and others today as far as being willing to take risks: Dive into the deep end, and if you don’t know how to swim, figure it out on the way in.
- Biggest challenge of adapting to the COVID-19 lockdown?
Maintaining active relationships and conversations without being physically “there.”
- Job you would pursue if not in public relations?
What I’ve been doing for the past 20 years – teaching public relations. But if I were to go completely outside of public relations, I’d probably be a business manager focusing, as I have always done, on excellent customer service.
Doing one of the things I love best: Mentoring students and teaching the next generation of public relations professionals.
Among other learning activities, I love taking students on visits to cool public relations agencies so they can glimpse the profession in action.
- Favorite book? Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, which has one sentence that has stuck with me for eons: “For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.” You don’t need to do grandiose things, just meaningful things.
- Favorite vacation? My “happy place,” Taipei, Taiwan, where I’ve been going for close to 50 years, and where my wife, Margaret, and I first visited in 1975 to see her family, who had relocated there from Vietnam. I fell in love with the city from the beginning, with all its history, culture, and, today, amazing international cuisine, and we make it a point to try at least two or three new restaurants each time we go!
The Taipei 101, which at 101 floors was officially the tallest building in the world for several years at the time it opened in 2004.
- Any three dinner guests? Ivy Ledbetter Lee, whose vision for the public relations profession so closely mirrors my own; Charles Lutwidge Dodson, also known as Lewis Carroll, whose imagination exceeds anything I could hope for; and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who has experienced more than any human being I can think of and remains optimistic.
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