|
Career Archives
- LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD -
AS LIRR RENOVATION ENDS WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?
(Newsday, October 23, 1994, By Sidney C. Schaer)
The Long Island Rail Road had a kind of fan appreciation day on Thursday, giving away danish and
coffee in the morning and little pocket calendars at night. Nobody mentioned this month's very important 25th anniversary.
But more on that in a minute. The occasion Thursday was the completion of the $190-million renovation of the LIRR's facility
in Penn Station, which is a misnomer of sorts since the real Pennsylvania Station was torn down 30 years ago, leaving a labyrinth of
underground concourses and track platforms for the trains to arrive and depart from. Commuters put up with the renovation for the
past 36 months, and have something to be thankful for since it was completed six months ahead of schedule.
LIRR IS LOSING ITS BRASH SPOKEMAN
(Newsday, June 1973, By Bradford W. O'Hearn)
In the dark days of 1969 when the Long Island Railroad was seeminglt coming apart at the switches, Hank Boerner became its public
relations director and he said most of his public relations colleagues thought he was half crazy. The rest though he was completely crazy. Today
Boerner, who was once called the Ipana smile of the railroad, leaves that job to become the Pepsodent smile for the New York Stock Exchange. He will be
replaced at the railroad by his second-in-command, George Thune, 42, of Levittown, a former managing editor of the Long Island Commercial Review.
TRUE GRIT
(PR Reporter, Volume 14, Number 3, January 18, 1971)
An unfortunate weakness among many public relations directors is the inability to put one's job on the line
when matters of principle are involved in a policy showdown. In situations where top management's opinion differs from the conviction
of the PR director in major areas of public relations involvement, the easy - some may euphemistically call it "diplomatic" - thing to do
is acquiesce. This may save the PR officer's job, at least for the time being; but more important as that may be, his job is about all that can
be salvaged.
PR & THE LONG ISLAND: THE UPHILL ROAD FROM FOE TO FRIEND
(PR Reporter, Volume 13, Number 33, August 17, 1970)
With a few exceptions, PR Directors of U.S. railroads don't have much to do with the passengers any more, except maybe to discourage them.
One of the exceptions is the little (334-mile) Long Island Rail Road, which carries more passengers by far than any other and tries to make them happy.
Its longest single run is 117 miles, and its shortest a mile. Yet despite the carier's size and the fact that almost 70% of its 260,000 daily passengers are commuters,
the Long Island's DPR Hank Boerner supervises some 40 people.
LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD OPENED UP HONEST COMMUNICATION WITH DISGRUNTLED CUSTOMERS
(PR Reporter, January 12, 1970)
Public confidence in the Long Island Rail Road nearly waived before a corporate reorganization and a major PR campaign addressed the company's problems.
The railroad rebuilt a positive relationship with the community it served by increasing communication through news releases, press conferences, newsletters, and pamphlets
distributed to passengers. No one should expect a busy transportation system to operate year-in and year-out without occasioinal delays and mishaps. This is especially true
of such a complicated operation as that of the nation's largest commuter line, the Long Island Rail Road, Jamaica, New York (LIRR).
THE LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD: HOW ITS PR DEPARTMENT FUNCTIONED DURING THOSE TWO FRANTIC MONTHS FOLLOWING ROCKEFELLER'S UNFORESEEN PLEDGE
(PR Reporter, Volume 12, Number 41, October 13, 1969)
The press practically lived with the Long Island Rail Road's public relations department during those two hectic months following New York Gov. Rockefeller's bolt-out-
of-the-blue pledge August 7. That's when he promised the carrier's 90,000 daily commuters that withing two months the broken-down, disaster-ridden railroad would be "the best in the country."
It was hard enough on the Long Island's PR department before that...hard enough that the State-owned line was admittedly coming apart at the switches, that angry commuters felt they were
risking their lives every time they rode the thing to work & back, that newspapers ran a daily Scoreboard showing how many train cancellations, how many accidents, how many no-shows, how many
late arrivals today and to date.
LONG ISLAND RAILROAD: PUBLICITY PUTS IT ON THE RIGHT TRACK
(Suffolk Sun, July 3, 1969, By Arthur Myers)
Not long ago, when the Long Island Rail Road was routinely threatened with its strike of the month, commuters were startled at being approached in Penn Station by mini-skirted
girls with pamphlets in their hands. The pamphlets were telling the commuters about emergency schedules should the strike become a reality. The girls were a nice touch, too.
The were in fact, a sort of symbol. They represented a new attitude for the LIRR, namely: upward and onward with better equipment. It might seem off that two such suspect institutions as the LIRR and
the public relations mystique could get togethor and produce something of social value, yet this strange union seems to have in this case produced fruit.
HARRIED LIRR ADDS A TROUBLE-TOOTER
(New York Post, February 28, 1969, By George Carpozi Jr.)
It was the perfect setting for the interview with the Long Island Rail Road's new public relations chief - a rickety old passenger car with dirty, peeling paint, broken and cracked windows
and squarish wheels. Even the seat he occupied was an ideal conversation piece - it was broken and wobbly. "What are you going to do about cars like this?" was the question put to Hank Boerner, the man who left
a cushony job as a community affairs director for American Airlines to take over the LIRR's bottom-of-the-barrel public relatoins hot seat. "We're not going to do a thing about trains like this," Boerner replied.
"I'm being honest. We're going to scrap them as soon as we can. And until then we'll just run them until they can't run anymore."
- AMERICAN AIRLINES -
HOW LI WELCOMED A MONTAGNARD CHILD IN '67
(The Way I See It, 1975, By Hank Boerner)
The heroic efforts by Americans to bring Vietnamese children to the United States for adoption brought back memories of a year-long struggle by Long Islanders eight years ago to bring just one
Montagnard youngster to the United States. Ha Kin Lieng was (in 1967) a bright 13-year old who had never left the little village of Da Me in the Central Highlands where he was born. As a Montagnard - rought the equivalent
of a disenfranchised, neglected American Indian from the Southwest - Ha Kin had little chance for an education. The South Vietnamese government discouraged education beyond the fourth grade for the million or so Montagnards.
AMERICAN AIRLINES SPONSORED THE AMERICAN YOUTH PERFORMS PROGRAM
(March 8, 1971)
Increasingly, corporations are conducting youth programs and cultural activities; where the two can be combined, the result is usually economical and effective. An example of this is found at American
Airlines (AA), New York City which has traditionally been active in the area of youth relations. In recent years it has been a sponsor of a program - American Youth Performs (AYP) - which is involved with both youth and culture.
AYP arranges participation by high school musicians and singers in the community and regional concerts and its affiliated AYP Foundation gives scholarships to take those who prove most deserving.
SELF-IMPROVEMENT COURSE GIVEN TO GHETTO GIRLS
(Action Report, Vol. 1, No. 5, Fall 1968)
Not all the stewardesses of American Airlines gave been working on airplanes during the past year. Some have been working in auditoriums, schoolrooms, apartment house basements, storefronts and other neighborhood
meeting places in such cities as Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Hartford, and New York. Their purpose: to teach the secrets of poise and good grooming to teen-age girls from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Working usually
with small groups of girls, the stewardesses show them the proper use of make-up, how to fix their hair, sit properly, walk gracefully, take care of the skin and in other ways look and act their best.
- NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE -
COMING SOON!!
- COUNSELING -
NEW AIRLINES CAREFULLY CRAFT AD CAMPAIGNS
(Newsday, March 7, 1983, By Daniel Kahn)
The six-week-old Atlantic Express airline carefully segments its customers and promotes speed over price. The year-old Northeastern International Airways opts for the broad-based marketing with the advertising focus on price.
Two airlines, two marketing strategies. Atlantic Express flies from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, to Boston, Philadelphia, Syracuse, and Albany. As a start-up company with limited financing and with two planes that each seat only 19 persons, it had to
maximize its marketing efforts. "We have to be very careful about where we take our shots," said Hank Boerner, head of Boerner Associates of Mineola, agency for the airling. "We don't have the money to try different ads to see what works. We can't
afford too much experimentation."
WHY NOT BOOSTERISM FOR LONG ISLAND?
(Newsday, March 21, 1975, By Hank Boerner)
Long Island, U.S.A.! An island empire, streching 120 miles into the Atlantic, more populous than most of the states in the union. Next door to the nation's financial and communications capital. Endowed with natural harbors, rolling
countryside, and plenty of wide-open acres available for immediate development. A diversified, highly skilled work force; a fairly stabilized economy; tremendouse potential for recreational and sports activities. Home for two-and-a-half million, and home
base as well for approximately 5,000 individual manufacturing firms. Sound like a place where you'd like to live, work and play? Obviously, the residents of Nassua and Suffolk think just that, b u t ...
- PUBLISHING -
COMING SOON!!
- MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS -
COMING SOON!!
|
|
