Public Relations Companies Win Protos Awards

The Protos Awards, Orange County’s annual recognition program for public relations work, drew 173 entries this year, up from 136 last year.

The winners were announced at a banquet Friday sponsored by the Orange County chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

In all, 31 top honors, or Protos Awards, were bestowed in 25 categories. An additional 50 entries received honorable mention recognition. Entries were judged on creativity and by how well they accomplished the client’s objectives.

Five Protos Awards, the most won by any one company this year, went to Laer Pearce & Associates in Irvine. The firm took honors in the categories of public affairs, news event release, feature release, collateral and corporate advertisement. In each case, the work was produced by Laer Pearce or Linda Martin.

Other multiple winners of the Protos were Ellen Appel Public Relations in Costa Mesa for media relations and article pitched to a consumer publication; David Paine and Liana Miller of Paine & Associates in Costa Mesa for news event release and speech preparation; and Tracy Childs of Nelson Communications in Costa Mesa for feature release and annual report.

Also winning multiple awards were Jessica New and Cathi Douglas of Amies Communications in Anaheim for article pitched to a consumer publication and article pitched to a trade publication; Marc LaFont of Bradford & Ivy Marketing Communications in Santa Ana for four-color brochure and newsletter; Laura Min and Kimberly Goolsby of Paine Healthcare in Costa Mesa, who won two awards in the category of article pitched to a trade publication; and Lonnie Anderson of Anderson Communications Co. in Newport Beach for four-color brochure and collateral.

Other Protos winners were Dawn McCormick of Irvine Co.; Hollie Chriss-Cronin of Thomas Wilck Associates in Irvine; Holly Barnett and Pamela Rigdon of Odetics in Anaheim; Donna G. Hahn of Hahn Communications in Lake Forest; Glenn Wilk, Robert Goraieb and Dan Pittman of Salvati Montgomery Sakoda in Costa Mesa; Les Goldberg of Les Goldberg Public Relations in Tustin; Tara Stoutenborough of Strategies marketing in Costa Mesa; Bob Boatman of Pick Systems in Irvine; Deborah Durell of Fluor Corp. in Irvine; Janell Shearer, Ruth Wardwell, Jeff Coulter and Pat Braithwaite of Chapman University in Orange; Octavio E. Nuiry of Ad Rendon and Asociados in Irvine; and Bill Strateman of Intercommunications Inc. in Newport Beach.