We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Terri Grunduski. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Terri below.
Terri, so many exciting things to discuss, we can’t wait. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our readers. So, maybe we can start by discussing optimism and where your optimism comes from?
GRUNDUSKI GROUP
My optimism comes from watching my Father, as I was growing up. My father was an encyclopedia salesman for World Book, with the absolute best attitude. As everyone knows, sales is hard—and door to door sales can be brutal, but my Father saw his job as a mission, to bring educational opportunities to learn to every house he visited. Dad knew education was one of the keys to being successful. He trained himself to see the positive in everything, becoming a positive mental attitude specialist. Towards the end of his 35+ year career, World Book hired him to travel and teach training classes to salesmen and women across the country, inspiring others to unleash their passion and be the best they can be through sharing the mission and positive thinking. His attitude was contagious.
I started to try and find the best of every situation. I began to realize — he was right — my attitude would be based on 10% of what actually HAPPENS to me, and 90% of how I REACT. That became my mantra. I can not always control what happens, BUT, I can control how I react to it. My Dad was my biggest hero and my guiding light, as he passed away in 2002. My father inspired our family to be positive and proactive . And so I do my best to carry on his legacy by trying to find the best in every situation.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
A little about me… I come from a family of four – Mom, Dad, brother Ron, and myself. We lived all over, including Wilmington, Delaware; Chicago, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; Mountaintop, Pennsylvania; Fairfax, Virginia; as well as Atlanta, Georgia. Every time my Dad was promoted, we were transferred to a new city, so change became a way of life for me. I graduated from James Madison University in Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and honestly, I knew from day one that I wanted to go into public relations.
I started my career at Turner Broadcasting in the early 90s, working for the Educational Division of Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. in PR, and finally got my opportunity to start my career in sports, when I accepted a job as Manager of Community Relations for the Atlanta Thrashers and the Atlanta Thrashers Foundation. That’s when I found my true passion — using sports as a catalyst to make an impact in the community. I loved working in sports, and helping athletes find their platform to give back.
After working in sports and entertainment for more than 20 years – with TBS, Inc., the Atlanta Thrasher Hockey Club, the Atlanta Falcons Football Club and various athlete foundations, we created our own agency — the Grunduski Group – that specialized in public relations and marketing /event work for both for profit and non-profit ventures, sports projects and programming.
The Grunduski Group has been very fortunate over the years to help direct athletes and other businesses to give back in their communities.
My teammates in Grunduski Group are Donna Feazell and Jill Beckett. Donna worked with the Atlanta Hawks over 30 years in Marketing and Community Relations, so was a natural for this work. Jill, a super-talented marketing, branding, IT, and graphic design expert helps us bring everything to life. Also, just a quick shout out to the many talented ladies and special volunteers that were part of the team over the years… especially Gina W., Megan, Keilah, Courtney, Jennifer, Sue, Valori, Katie, Gina V., and Traci… we could have never done this work without all of you. A special shoutout to my husband, Rob, and my two sons, Jacob and Erik, all athletes at some point, have been an important part of our logistics team for events over the past 10 years as well.
The Grunduski Group has worked with 16 different clients, raising more than 2.1 million dollars for charitable outreach, planning more than 80+ events and projects, and working with the media to get coverage, while making a difference.
The Grunduski Group has been recognized locally as a Best of Gwinnett company for the best six years in a row.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three qualities I think were important in public relations, event planning and Foundation development are:
- Develop Strong Communication Skills
2. Accept opportunities – big and small – to learn
3. Always have a Back Up Plan
Communications is the key to keeping everything flowing and everyone on the same track in an organization. As the public relations professional, executives and clients look to you as their resident expert and guidance in situations. Be sure to stay on top of the information as it comes in, and communicate to everyone — above AND below — to make sure everyone is on the same page for your event, project or just your annual plans.
Accept Opportunities -big and small – to learn about your organization or work on projects for people. I know sometimes an employee feels like they are not getting to do the “biggest” and best projects, etc… or their work is trivial compared to other Managers, etc. But, it is important to learn the business — all of it– and take the opportunities that come your way. You never know who you will meet, or work on with them, or who is watching. All opportunites are what you make them…. so work hard, on all of them!
Have a Back Up Plan — ALWAYS! And do your best to think on your feet. Sometimes the best laid plans do NOT go as planned…. like planning a golf tournament in South Florida, and never setting foot on the golf course, due to hurricane season/torrential downpours; or having a youth football camp in July on the hottest day of the year (and not having enough water or tents.) You must always have a back up plan for events, as the “show must go on.” For the golf tournament, we took a rain out and turned it into a busy 24 hours of great food, drink, fun casino games and back patio games … so that the charity could keep the funding for research. And, as for the youth football camp, we had to work out ways to give more breaks, use buildings for shade and cut the length and get more water out on the field, so kids could stay hydrated. You can make it work– planning ahead for multiple situations and staying flexible, calm and thinking on your feet when issues arise.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
For us, the ideal client is someone who understands the impact they can make as a professional athlete or business person in the community.
A story that comes to mind, was an afternoon early in my career, when I was asked to do a player visit to the Emory campus of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, our local children’s hospital.
As a young Community Relations, Director, I realized the powerful platform that professional athletes had to make a difference and affect change that day. The hockey players that I brought to the hospital changed the paradigm for the patients we saw; for a few moments, these children were not “in the hospital”; they were having a one-on-one conversation with a Thrashers Forward, or playing a game with them, enjoying the moment. Patients’ Parents would send me letters to the Thrashers offices afterwards telling us how much that player meant to their child, and what a difference it made that day, on their outlook, etc… I could go on and on.
**That was the moment I decided that I wanted to always work on the philanthropic side, to help athletes and others use their platform for good and change.
Whether it was NFL and NCAA Coach Jim and Shannon Mora supporting Special Olympics athletes, Major League Soccer player Julian Gressel helping create more opportunities for kids to play soccer, Buddy Curry, and his NFL alumni, friends, post- football hosting camps and clinics for inner-city kids, Major League Baseball pitcher Ryan Dempster hosting events that raised funds for and supported families dealing with 22q11.2 deletion, or even the many NHL players, as well as Stacy Sager on behalf of the SagerStrong Foundation that came to the hospital to work with cancer patients, … The list goes on and on.
I love what I do… and I’m so proud of our team that has worked hard, over the past 11 years we’ve been a team, to make a difference for all of our clients!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://grunduskigroup.com/
- Instagram: @GGroup2
- Facebook: Grunduski Group
- Linkedin: Grunduski Group
- Twitter: @GGroup2
