In the spring semester of 2015 Wind Energy Development teamed up with Dr. Hollie Smith, an assistant professor for the Harrington School of Communication at the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Smith took a “hands on approach” when teaching her public relations class. Having hosted two interns from the program the previous semester, WED was more than happy to help.
The class of 28 upper class students worked closely with WED to create PR strategies for the company. Each group chose a different target audience to base their pitch around. All of the information on the company and energy in Rhode Island came directly from a meeting with Seth Handy, Kara Bennet and Mark DePasquale. The class had 10 weeks to research their target audience and to create a unique PR campaign which was later pitched to Michelle Carpenter, COO and Mark DePasquale, CEO of WED.
“Being able to create and pitch a PR campaign for an actual company allowed me to gain an experience that without WED I would have never been able to have inside of the classroom. The entire WED team was accommodating and attentive to the entire class and our ideas” ‘16 URI PR student.
As a Rhode Island based company WED is proud to have worked with the University of Rhode Island and its students.