Welcome and Q&A with our new Senior Director, Lindsay Kurs

We’re thrilled to welcome our new Senior Director, Lindsay Kurs, who brings 10 years of marketing communications and media relations experience to our growing team. We sat down with Lindsay to learn more about her background, her biggest media hit and her favorite L.A. hike.

Lindsay_Headshots-008 What led you to Hershey Cause Communications?
I moved to Los Angeles from New York City in late 2012 and was inspired by the connection that Hershey Cause Communications has to its community. This is apparent in both the clients it serves and its commitment to sharing best practices in nonprofit communications. I sought a local tie in my career and jumped at the opportunity to do meaningful, important work with an amazing group of people.

What were you doing prior to joining Hershey Cause Communications?
Before coming to Hershey Cause Communications, I worked for the New York-based communications agency, gabbegroup, where I started my career in 2004. When my husband and I moved to L.A., I had the opportunity to work remotely for the agency from a home office. I dabbled in a little bit of everything during my tenure at gabbegroup, working on wide-ranging communications projects for health, education and philanthropy clients. My natural affinity to health and medicine projects developed into a long-standing role on The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center account team where I helped lead national media relations.

Tell us about one of your most memorable projects?
Every year, as part of my work on behalf of the MD Anderson’s Children’s Cancer Hospital, I pitched the hospital’s Camp A.O.K. for teen cancer survivors to national media. In 2010, I hit the figurative media jackpot by attracting the interest of the Rachael Ray Show. Inspired by the teens’ stories, the TV personality sent her team packing for summer camp where she surprised campers with plans to makeover the prom held every year on the last night. It was fun watching everything come together as her celebrity stylists and event planners treated the entire group of Camp A.O.K. teens to new dresses, tuxes, hair, makeup, limos, decorations and a prom night to remember. Following the camp, pediatric patient Emily Garcia was flown to New York to be on the show and interviewed by Ray herself. The result was a 30-minute long segment featuring Emily and the other teens of Camp A.O.K. Everything – from seeing the campers’ reactions to Ray’s arrival to the surprise message from Emily’s idol Taylor Swift – made the many hours of blood and sweat (think Texas in July!) poured into this project totally worth it.

What are three words you would use to describe yourself?
Energetic. Resourceful. Happy.

What is your favorite L.A. experience thus far?
I have a hard time sitting still, so I find it a bit comical that I live in L.A., “The Entertainment Capital of the World,” and don’t have the patience to make it through a two-hour movie. However, I’ve loved discovering that L.A. is a crazy hybrid of Hollywood glamour and the rugged outdoors. I’m constantly on my bike exploring the area’s soaring canyons – and even did a race this past spring that went up (and down) seven of them over 62 miles. I’ve also picked up hiking. My favorite adventure to date was waking up at 4 a.m. and climbing to the top of Mt. San Gorgonio in a 17-mile hike with my husband to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Romantic from start to finish, we’ll always joke about the amazing strip mall Chinese food we picked up in the San Gabriel Valley on the way home!

Learn more about Lindsay here.