Glamorous? It depends who touches it. Who makes, with their effort, even a jaded profession like PR seem exciting and full of possibilities. With that kind of zest, you’ll go places for zest is contagious. Ask Karen Nelson, former Senior PR liaison at the venerable UCLA Live! program and now appointed chief publicist of Minnesota’s Hannetin Consortium which encompasses three historic theatres in Downtown Minneapolis.

After a top-notch career with world class museums and artistic programs all over the country, the thick weight of filial blood and lifetime friendships call her back closer to home. So for Karen, after an outstanding career at the Getty and UCLA Live!, her days in sunny Los Angeles came to an end. But not before dozens of friends and colleagues came in hordes to pay their respects to one of the most respected journalists and PR specialists in town.

At any given night at Royce Hall, you could count on her expeditious style to get things done, be it press passes or last minute accommodations. Always in the look out to connect writers not just to UCLA Live but also to one another, she excelled in the human relationships department, on and off the job.

While outside in the garden dozens of influential reporters and local journalists mingled, inside the house Karen rocked the house with accompanying musicians and friends. PR probably stood for Puro Rock in this particular occasion. You'll be sorely missed Karen.

At a private farewell party held for her near Culver City, I can easily get a glimpse of the world she so efficiently and effortlessly navigated for years while in this town: writers and editors from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily News, the director of communications for the LA County & Arts Commission and assorted artists and friends both from her personal life as well as UCLA Live co-workers.

Normally, we journalists don’t attend that many farewell parties for PR colleagues: we’d be depleted of all available hours of day and night, sleep time included. In a mercurial town like LA, PR personnel shifts around often enough that even a somewhat meaningful relationship with pr agents is nearly impossible. But of course, there are the exceptions. And I’m reporting on one.

After a couple of years working closely with her as a local journalist, I can attest to her quiet strength and evident competence to get things done, from arranging interviews to providing photographic or background material on any and all featured artists all the way to plain and simple camaraderie while socializing at the many events held by UCLA Live year round.

The few occasions I had to mingle with her at somewhat more private settings I was able to confirm this professional impression: she’s truly interested in the human relationship, even past the professional conventions. Perhaps this kind of personality is what brought her from her native Minnesota all across the country, including stints with the National Endowment for the Arts during their most critical era when threats of lack of funding jeopardized the NEA existence altogether.

On the phone

During a short interview conducted over the telephone with Karen, I realized that beyond trajectory clarifications, we’re truly just chatting. Unlike formal interviews where you have to constantly steer the conversation back to the topics you’d want covered, in our conversation topics flow naturally: how for example, her beginnings are truly as a trained conservatory musician interested in music therapy who finds it so difficult to explain to the rest of the world what music therapy is that she becomes a communications expert –read: PR liaison.

And how this leads her to stints with the American Composers Forum in St. Paul Minnessota and later to a very energizing trip to Brazil, followed by a position with an NEA sponsored arts group called Arts Midwest. From there to the NEA in Washington DC and finally, a key position with the communications department at the Getty Museum before landing the senior publicist role at UCLA Live, the program by which this city is literally measured in the cultural barometer.

And here’s where we started. Me and her that is, here’s where we started our professional relationship.

We talk about her passion for community and the arts as a tool for massive involvement and re-engineering. She confesses the top notch quality of the UCLA Live Program will be difficult to match and therefore missed but new and exciting challenges await her in other favorite areas like Dance, the Visual Arts, Music & Theatre among others.

Her new employer, the Hannetin Consortium runs three historic theatres: The State Theatre, The Orpheum and The Pantages, all located in downtown Minneapolis and all at some point, reputable Vaudeville houses so there will be plenty of acts to book and watch.

As we come full circle in her trajectory, we end up again in the music department: at heart, she’s a musician, a singer, a flute and piano player and a darn good harmony folk singer. More for pleasure than for gain, she’s performed at several locations in town like the reputable El Cid Restaurant.

In her personal life, art and music constantly filled her off-work hours. A close-knit group composed of artists of all sorts –sculptors, painters, musicians, etc- surrounded her while she was a local resident and most were present at her personal farewell party.

Here’s where I decide that she more than deserves her very own interview. Her trajectory is certainly a blueprint for successful PR and should inspire many candidates in the field. More importantly though, Karen represents success for PR people who get the full picture: human relations are at the core of all PR efforts and to increase your success rate, you must honestly be interested in the human aspect of your work or your efficacy will be insignificant. In which case, Karen's example and trajectory are twice as important since they embody both: top notch journalistic competence and old-fashioned 'personable relationships'.