Becky Taylor, Owner and President
BTaylor Public Affairs, LLC
243 N. Union St., Suite 116
Lambertville, NJ 08530
609.240.6886
becky@btaylorpa.com
OVERVIEW
Becky is a strategic public affairs executive whose career spans corporate, small business, government and nonprofit sectors. Becky has provided strategic counsel to public and private entities for most of her career. She has extensive experience developing strategic communications plans to build brand and reputation by engaging and educating the public and/or other key audiences, creating and implementing high-profile initiatives and strategic partnerships and featuring active civic engagement. Her roles have ranged from small business owner of a public affairs firm specializing in strategic communications and media relations to Governor’s press secretary; lead public affairs officer for four state agencies, including the NJ Department of Health; public affairs lead to a corporate foundation; community relations director and overseer of corporate philanthropy in NJ, and reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers.
HIGHLIGHTS
President, BTaylor Public Affairs, 2008-present
Becky has developed strategic communications campaigns for pharmaceutical companies (Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Allergan and Brighton Biotech), hospitals (St. Francis Medical Center and Children’s Specialized Hospital) and the Trenton Health Team. She provided media relations services for the medical publishing house based in Plainsboro, Michael J. Hennessy Associates, and for several other clients. Her company, BTaylor Public Affairs, offers strategic communications and media relations services as well as other communications-related support. She provided strategic counsel to a smart energy and storage company, A.F. Mensah Inc., she also served as communications lead for Petra Solar, the NJ-based company that manufactured the dubbed solar energy system “solar-on-a-utility-pole” and communications lead to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s most disadvantaged school district, Chester Upland School District.
Senior Director, Public Affairs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, 1998-2008
Becky served as a public affairs executive in corporate strategy, business, and policy communication. She headed the NJ community relations office for BMS, overseeing distribution of $4 million annually to community and civic groups.
Governor’s Press Secretary, Public Affairs Lead, State of New Jersey, 1984-1998
Past positions include Governor Christy Whitman’s communications director, where she oversaw public information offices in 20 state agencies, and governor’s press secretary, as well as public affairs director at several NJ state departments: Office of the NJ Attorney General; NJ Department of Environmental Protection and Energy; NJ Department of Health; NJ Department of Insurance.
Reporter & Editor, Daily & Weekly Newspapers, to 1983
Becky covered municipal, county and state beats, served as a copy editor on the news desk and edited a style section as an editor and reporter at daily and weekly newspapers in NJ, PA, RI and VA.
VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES
Becky is Co-President of the Lawrence Hopewell Trail, an initiative she founded in her role as community relations director at BMS. Since leaving BMS in 2008, she has continued to share leadership of this coalition of community members developing a 23-mile biking and walking trail in Mercer County. The trail is 89 percent complete, and the group is now connecting with contiguous communities. Currently the LHT is the northeast corner of the 800-mile Circuit Coalition of bicycling trails around greater Philadelphia. It also connects to the Appalachian Trial and therefore a user could conceivably go from the LHT to Maine or Florida.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts degree, English literature; Stephens College, Columbia, Mo.
PERSONAL
Becky and her husband, Matthew Reilly, public affairs officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey and former Star-Ledger reporter, live in Trenton, NJ.
BTAYLOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS AT A GLANCE
BTaylor Public Affairs (BTPA) is a woman-owned full-spectrum public affairs agency. The team of seasoned communications and public affairs professionals also includes a blend of younger, eager and sophisticated talent with new media experience.
SERVICES
Services provided by BTPA include media relations, including developing effective strategies, pitching story ideas, writing releases, advisories and op-eds, managing media queries and media relationships; community and employee relations services; event planning; writing of collateral materials, white papers, etc.; graphic design; photography; and web development. These are offered flexibly, depending on a client’s needs.
BTPA’S OVERALL STRENGTHS:
- Extensive media relations, government relations, public affairs and community relations experience
- Experience in policy areas of health care, education, environment, energy, land use and local transportation
- Expertise in dealing with issues that cross government, business, non-profit and media spheres of influence
- Deep knowledge and understanding of every level of government
- Significant experience in developing strategic communications campaigns in public, private and non-profit sectors
- Expansive virtual collective rolodex
Becky Taylor has extensive media relations experience, which serves as an important backdrop to her external communications services. She started her career as a journalist, working for daily, weekly and monthly publications in her early career. Once her career shifted to supporting those who seek media coverage, she brought her savvy of media wants and needs and her strategic communications approach to a variety of public affairs jobs. In that second role, her activities included:
- Hosting almost daily press briefings and conferences drawing scores of reporters and handling upwards of 50 media calls in a day to managing one-on-one interviews with a reporter and the Governor or cabinet officer
- Managing media relations for the Trenton Health Team, two distressed Pennsylvania school districts and a NJ nursing home group
- Handling media relations for corporate, small businesses and start-ups
- And planning and executing local and international media tours.
EXPERTISE
BTPA’s experience leading public affairs offices in the business, government and non-profit sectors serves as the foundation upon which the public affairs firm based in Lambertville, N.J., was built.
BTPA’s president was a former press secretary to New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and a public affairs executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb. She has a proven track record in strategic communications planning and execution, media, community and employee relations, print and broadcast materials production and web development. After her early years as a journalist covering municipal, county and state governments, and then leading public affairs functions in state agencies, she provided communications services for businesses large and small before establishing her own company in 2008.
Public sector: As Governor Whitman’s communications director and press secretary, Taylor oversaw and coordinated communications of all state agencies. She managed media relations with the State House Press Corps and the national press corps (Whitman at that time was being touted as a possible vice presidential candidate). She staffed the governor at the Republican National Convention and on international trade missions as well as in national and local appearances.
Ms. Taylor served as public affairs lead for Departments of Health, Environmental Protection (DEP), Law & Public Safety (L&PS) and Insurance at various times during 14-year stint with state government. While at L&PS, she developed and executed a communications campaign to support state efforts to improve motor vehicle services. At DEP, Taylor worked collaboratively with colleagues in Department of Transportation, to develop and execute a communications campaign encouraging lifestyle changes to improve air quality. In each department, she managed media relations and other related communications.
While in N.J. government, as Governor Whitman’s communications director, oversaw and coordinated communications of all state agencies. Managed media relations with the State House Press Corps and the national press corps as Whitman’s press secretary (who at that time was being touted as a possible vice presidential candidate.)
Corporate sector: As a senior communications executive with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Taylor developed and executed a media strategy to publicize the company’s $150 million program to fight AIDS in Africa. She planned and led a media tour in Africa for 23 journalists from three continents, and ghost-wrote columns for the BMS CEO and placed them in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. She managed press conferences at the 2006 & 2007 World AIDS Conferences in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Sydney, Australia. She created and executed community relations for BMS in New Jersey and managed an annual budget in excess of $4 million as a key community relations tool. The result was a creative nexus of community relations and philanthropy to position BMS boldly in the public eye.
Non-profit sector: Ms. Taylor conceived and still co-leads a community project creating a 23-mile biking and walking trail the New Jersey Department of Transportation has lauded as the first corporate-driven community transportation project involving public and private partners in the nation. Member organizations of the initiative include Lawrence and Hopewell Townships governments, Mercer County government, two corporate partners, the Lawrenceville School, and several small businesses and non-profits. Called the Lawrence-Hopewell Trail, the biking and walking pathway is 75 percent.
ROSTER OF SELECTED CLIENTS
For Bristol-Myers Squibb, BTPA has provided strategic communications counsel in Information Technology, Human Resources, Global Procurement, Research and Development, Manufacturing, Global Advocacy, Diversity and Inclusion, Medical Affairs and Sustainability. Becky Taylor is listed on BMS White Pages as a key consultant reporting to Laura Hortas, Vice President, Corporate and Employee Communications.
BTPA provided communications services as a subcontractor to Professional Financial Management (PFM) for the Pennsylvania Education Secretary for three of the first school districts subject to a 2012 PA state law targeting financially troubled, low-performing districts. The scope of work includes website development, media relations, crisis management and community outreach. Effective communications was deemed critical to the success of the efforts to implement financial and academic plans developed as part of the recovery process.
An outgrowth from the PFM engagement was the strategic communications support for the Chester-Upland School District, Pennsylvania’s worst-performing and perhaps most challenged school district in the state from 2013 to 2016. As the state managed the district over those years, BTPA’s services included keeping the local community as well as the region and state informed of efforts to improve the curricula, safety and climate at the district.
For Allergan, BTPA planned and executed a press conference with the Chief Executive Officer and New Jersey Lt. Governor announcing a new major Research and Development presence, bucking a trend over a decade of pharmaceutical retrenchment in New Jersey.
The Actors Housing Development Fund, with headquarters in New York and Los Angeles, CA, provides support services to struggling performing artists. The work of BTPA publicizes the efforts to provide affordable housing to performing and creative artists in re-development areas like the Rahway Transit Village area in New Jersey.
The Trenton Health Team (THT) is a public-private partnership developing and delivering innovative approaches to healthcare. The first step for this collaboration between the city’s two hospitals, its only federally recognized health clinic and the city Health Department was to expand primary care access across all of the city’s clinics. THT collectively assesses health needs, determines priorities and works together to improve the health of the community. BTPA has provided a range of services including developing and maintaining a new, more robust, website, developing a compelling 24-page Community Report and regular media outreach.