FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Wanda Blair
612.455.1791

Padilla Speer Beardsley senior vice president Matt Kucharski elected to PRSA Counselors Academy executive committee

MINNEAPOLIS(March, 2008) - Padilla Speer Beardsley, an independent public relations consulting firm with offices in Minneapolis and New York, announced that Matt Kucharski, senior vice president, has been elected to a three-year term on the executive committee of the Counselors Academy of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Counselors Academy is a Professional Interest Section within PRSA made up of public relations firm owners and leaders.

Kucharski has more than 20 years of experience in business-to-business marketing, branding and crisis/critical issues public relations. In addition to his role with Counselors Academy, he serves on the board and executive committee of the Minnesota High Tech Association and the international board of the Worldcom Public Relations Group. He also is an adjunct instructor at the University of Minnesota and a frequent lecturer and author of articles on marketing and public relations, and contributes regularly to the agency's blog, www.psbblog.com.

Counselors Academy (www.counselorsacademy.org) is a Professional Interest Section of PRSA dedicated to providing principals and senior counselors of public relations firms with the resources to grow their firms and the counseling skills of their people. Drawing from the considerable talent of its membership, Academy programs are designed to encourage networking, mentoring and peer support. Membership is limited to PRSA-Accredited counselors or consultants with more than 10 years experience in the profession.

The Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa.org), with headquarters in New York City, is the world's largest organization for public relations professionals with nearly 32,000 professional and student members. PRSA is organized into 109 Chapters nationwide and 19 Professional Interest Sections and Affinity Groups, which represent business and industry, counseling firms, independent practitioners, military, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations. The Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) has 291 Chapters at colleges and universities throughout the United States and one Chapter in Argentina.

About Padilla Speer Beardsley
Padilla Speer Beardsley is an employee-owned, multi-specialty communications consulting firm with headquarters in Minneapolis and an office in New York. It is a founding partner of the Worldcom Public Relations Group, a consortium of 100 independently owned partner offices in nearly 100 cities in more than 30 countries on six continents. Padilla also is a founder of Lumin Collaborative LLC, an intellectual collaborative dedicated to developing next-generation communications solutions. Clients include BASF, Cub Foods, Ernst & Young, General Mills, HB Fuller, Rockwell Automation, Transamerica, UnitedHealthcare and Vital Images. The firm's Web site is www.psbpr.com.