Event Registration

Date:     Oct. 9, 2018
Time:    11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Price:    $30 for members | $40 for future members | $25 for students
Location:    Holiday Inn Fort Myers Airport at Town Center - 9931 Interstate Commerce Dr, Fort Myers, FL 33913

Speaker(s)/Presenter(s):   Gordon Paulus, APR, CPRC – Sr. Communications Specialist at Gulf Power Company and State President of FPRA; Cheray Keyes-Shima, APR, CPRC – Principal at KSC, Inc. and Executive Director for FPRA; Randy Mitchelson, APR – Vice President at iPartnerMedia, Inc. and President-Elect for the SWFL Chapter of FPRA

Bio: Gordon Paulus, APR, CPRC - Gordon is a Sr. Communications Specialist at Gulf Power Company in Pensacola, where he has worked for almost 15 years. He previously worked for 21 years for newspapers in sports departments.

Gordon is a two-time president of the Pensacola chapter of FPRA and has served on the FPRA Executive Committee for 7 of the last 8 years. He is an Arkansas native; married to Karen, who is the publisher of Snowbirds Gulf Coast magazine. He likes long walks on the beach (sorry, wrong panel); plays tennis and read military history books.

Cheray Keyes-Shima, APR, CPRC – is the principal of KSC, Inc. Founded in 1998, KSC is a full-service communications firm focused on creating real connections between businesses, brands and people.

Cheray specializes in the development and execution of marketing and public relations strategies for a wide variety of local, regional and national clients. She also serves as Executive Director of the Florida Public Relations Association, the field’s premier professional organization in the state of Florida.

Over the course of her career, Cheray has experienced nearly all aspects of the marketing, public relations and advertising industries. She earned her undergraduate degree in public relations from Florida State University and is Accredited and Certified in Public Relations. She began her career assisting the United Way of Sarasota County during their annual campaign period. She then spent seven years as Community Development Director for First Step, Inc., a local provider of substance abuse treatment, where she was tasked with building the organization’s first public relations department. By the time she left, Cheray managed a staff of seven and a sizeable budget.

Over the years, Cheray has received numerous honors for her work in the public relations industry, including several ADDYs and FPRA Golden Image Awards. In 2017, she received the Dillin Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Florida Public Relations Association. In addition to being honored for her professional achievements, Cheray has been recognized for her local volunteer work for early child development, which dates back almost twenty years.

Randy Mitchelson, APR – is an award winning entrepreneur, author and community leader with more than 25 years of experience in sales, marketing and financial services.

He has served in leadership roles for Fortune 500 firms as well as several start-ups. He has earned accreditation in public relations and helps advertisers drive new customer acquisition and build stronger relationships with stakeholders through online marketing and web technology and analysis of data that it generates.

Mitchelson is vice president at iPartnerMedia, Inc. (iPM), a digital marketing and print agency in Bonita Springs, FL. iPM was named start-up business of the year in 2017 by Lee County Economic Development and Horizon Council.

Randy’s digital marketing insights are published by Website Magazine, Search Engine Journal, American Express and many others.

Prior to iPM, Randy founded National Web Leads which generated millions of leads for advertisers in a variety of industries using email, pay-per-click and display marketing campaigns. National Web Leads merged with Reach Media Group in 2012 where he served as Chief Marketing Officer. Mitchelson has served in national and regional leadership roles with Bank of America, KeyBank and CIBC’s Marketplace Bank.

Randy is a Golden Image award winner from the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) and was named 2016 member of the year by the FPRA Southwest Florida chapter. He also received the Partnership Award from the SWFL Regional Technology Partnership.

As a licensed mortgage professional and personal credit expert, Mitchelson educates people both in-person and online where he founded the DailyDollar™ personal finance newsletter and published more than 1,200 articles. DailyDollar was named by U.S. News and World Report to its list of 8 Savvy Personal Financial Podcasts. His writings and expertise about personal finance have been featured on Fox Business, CBS Moneywatch, WebMasterRadio, CMO.com, Trulia.com and more.

Mitchelson's community leadership includes: founding member of the Southwest Florida Regional Technology Partnership Inc.; founder, Larry Mitchelson Scholarship Foundation, Inc. (Estero, FL); board member at Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce; President-Elect, Southwest Chapter of Florida Public Relations Association and social media chair for SWFL Chapter Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals; past president Seminole County Board of Directors for Boys and Girls Clubs of America (Orlando, FL);  founding member, Michelle's Angels Foundation (Lake Mary, FL);  founder and former vice president of STEM, Inc. (Troy, NY); and founder and former president Marketplace Bank Foundation, Inc. (Maitland, FL).

Mitchelson earned his Bachelor of Science and MBA degrees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.