by Crystal Davis | Mar 30, 2011 | News Slider
Lipscomb’s communication department prepares its students to be successful professionals, which is evident in Jenny Barker, APR– a Lipscomb alum and public relations practitioner who headed up Gaylord Opryland’s post-flood public relations campaign. On Monday, March 28, the communication department held its regular COMMA (Communications Majors and Minors Association) meeting with Lipscomb alum Jenny Barker as the guest speaker for the night. Barker majored in public relations here at Lipscomb and was a part of the 2004 graduating class. She started her career at Atkinson Public Relations working in crisis management positions. Barker finally landed at Centennial Medical Center where she stayed comfortably as Director of Public Relations until a rare opportunity came her way. In October 2010 she got a call from Gaylord Opryland to assist them with PR in the aftermath of the May 2010 flood. Barker saw this as a “once in a career opportunity” to work with a company in this type of crisis. At the COMMA meeting Barker gave detailed background information about the hotel during the flood and its resurgence. “The biggest fear was that the hotel would lose power,” Barker said. Hotel workers feared that the “miles of tunnels under the hotel that contained the IT and the power supply” would fill up with water and the main power source for the hotel would be lost. Before power was lost, and before water even reached the building, the hotel decided to activate the Alert Pyramid for Gaylord Opryland, a plan set in place in case of some kind of evacuation emergency. Hotel officials realized the severity of the situation and decided to...
