Lessons Learned: Joyce Aschenbrenner

We are taking the time a day here and there to look at some of the lessons learned we featured in the book. Over the weekend I saw it was Joyce Aschenbrenner ‘s birthday, so we decided to highlight her story…see below.

 One of the trailblazers for women in the industry, Joyce Aschenbrenner made her first mark in the collegiate ranks at the University of Pittsburgh, having a hand in the publicity and promotion of future NFL stars Dan Marino and Tony Dorsett in a time when very few women were fulltime in the industry, especially on a major college level. A graduate of the University of West Virginia and a Pittsburgh native, Joyce moved on to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from 1982 through 1990. It was while she was with the Runnin Rebels that college basketball became an even bigger showpiece than in the past, and her work fine-tuning the pregame excitement at Rebels basketball for Jerry Tarkanian’s squad, including light shows, red-carpet entrances and indoor fireworks became an industry trend.  She took college basketball and helped make it into showtime in the showiest city in the world.

Aschenbrenner then moved on to the University of Colorado, where she was the associate athletics director for external affairs and senior women’s administrator. During that time, she also worked as a liaison to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Following her time in Boulder, she served a three-year term on the Defense Advisory Commission for Women in the Services for the Department of Defense. She then left collegiate athletics and moved on to The V Foundation for Cancer Research in November 2001 as the director of marketing and communications and now works on various consulting projects. She is also a cancer survivor, and role model to the many women now entering the industry at record rates.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM  JOYCE ASCHENBRENNER:  The skills that are learned as publicists can translate to many different fields, including the not-for-profit area.  There are many ways to help grow the area where charities and sports intermix these days, and make that area into a very worthwhile part of sports publicity as well.