August 2009

Wilma Mathews' experience in domestic and international public relations and communication management and implementation spans more than three decades and includes positions with a large corporation (AT&T), a public university (Arizona State University), a medical center, two chambers of commerce and a weekly newspaper.

She is co-author of On Deadline: Managing Media Relations (4^th ed. 2006) now also available in China in a translated version; author of Effective Media Relations:  A Practical Guide for Communicators; principal contributor to How to Get Results With Publicity; author of How to Create a Media Relations Program and a contributor to several books and reports.

Mathews has coached hundreds of executives in both presentation and media relations techniques. She has spoken before numerous professional, civic, government and academic audiences in the U.S., Canada, England, New Zealand, China, Malaysia and Australia. She contributes articles to trade and professional journals, and provides council to organizations on strategic and media relations planning.

A Fellow and accredited member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), Mathews has served that organization as chairman of the IABC Research Foundation and the Accreditation Council, and was twice a member of the executive board. She is a Gold Quill winner for media relations and writing.

Mathews is listed in several recognition directories including Who's Who in America and is a member of the Rowan University PR Hall of Fame. Mathews serves on the advisory board of "communication briefings" and the executive board of the Friends of the Phoenix Public Library. She is the advisor for the ASU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America and is a PR faculty associate in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication at ASU. She retired from ASU's Public Affairs in July of 2008.

NOW FOR THE REAL STUFF: Wilma is an avid mystery, biography and history reader. She enjoys travel and is the consummate tourist, tramping through zoos and old houses with equal aplomb. She is an unabashed fan for the University of North Carolina basketball team. She likes backgammon and Jeopardy and uses knitting, needlework and reading in lieu of tranquilizers. Her greatest moments in life include being a sponsor for a young boy in Indonesia. Among her greatest adventures is being attacked by a one-armed gibbon at an elephant camp in Thailand.