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Robert Deigh's Bio

Robert Deigh is a communication professional with more than 25 years of experience in public relations, marketing, public affairs and journalism. He has served as communication counsel to executives in Fortune 500 companies; high-technology businesses; education and healthcare organizations; non-profit groups, the military and government agencies, promoting a wide range of products and services. He helps organizations large and small increase their visibility and build their brands by creating strong and positive relationships with key audiences, resulting in a greater understanding and acceptance by those audiences of the organizations’ products and services.

Among his many services as a consultant, he trains executives to face the press and is a frequent speaker to businesses on how they can raise their visibility in the market using public relations techniques.

Deigh is author of “How Come No One Knows About Us?” The Ultimate Public Relations Guide: Tactics Anyone Can Use to Win High Visibility.” (May 2008, W Business Books)

Before starting his own company, Deigh was director of corporate communication for Blackboard Inc, in Washington, D.C., an Internet education and software company, where he helped build the company's image from a startup to an industry leader. Before coming to Blackboard, he was communication director of two divisions of America Online, Inc., where he helped created a higher awareness of the company’s many products and services among the news media and other external and internal audiences. Prior to AOL, he was senior vice president of Ryan-McGinn, a public relations firm.

Deigh served for seven years as director of communications of the national PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) television network where he was also its chief media spokesperson. He helped lead the network and its 350 member stations through communication campaigns involving new technology, new products, education initiatives, funding, programming and political issues. At PBS, Deigh was instrumental in helping stations of all sizes join together to leverage their promotion and PR efforts on regional and national activities. His efforts resulted in strong coverage in local, regional and national press. He also worked closely with individual stations to help build strong visibility in their local markets.

An award-winning writer and television producer/director, Deigh has more than a dozen years of journalism experience. Before joining PBS, he was an associate editor of U.S. News & World Report magazine. He has written for a number of other national and regional magazines as well as newspapers, television and radio outlets.

Deigh was an active-duty U.S. Army public affairs officer in the Panama Canal Zone and at a number of stateside locations. Also, he was a speechwriter at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a PR staffer at the American Newspaper Publishers Association. Deigh earned a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., and a master’s degree in public relations from The American University in Washington, D.C.

Deigh is active in the Washington, D.C. region’s business community. He is a member of the International Association of Business Communicators, the Public Relations Society of America, the Potomac Officer’s Club, Business Networking International, and other technology, business and communication organizations. He has served on the board of directors of the New Media Society and as a committee member of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Deigh is also a member of the Washington Area Music Association.