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AAPRC Weekly: Pat Tobin

Pat Tobin
Founder & President
Tobin & Associates
Los Angeles CA

Pat Tobin has never backed away from a challenge –– not that her life thus far has offered many short cuts. The veteran publicist was 12 when her mother died, 18 when she became a wife and 22 when she became a mother. Tobin pushed her way into the public relations field in Los Angeles during the late-1970s, long before concepts like diversity and ethnic marketing became popular. She started her own business as a single mother with no safety net. At her core, it seems, Tobin is a woman who has always gone her own way, especially when the going got tough.

Raised in Philadelphia, Tobin got her first taste of public relations as a volunteer communications director for the organization PUSH and other community groups. She fit the work in while juggling a husband and daughter and night classes at Temple University. Early on, she developed an affinity for entertainment. Tobin and a group of friends organized and networked at after-work “cocktail sips” and fashion shows, and helped promote events at a popular Philadelphia entertainment venue called the Latin Casino. “I was able to sell about 500 tickets to a show with Gladys Knight and I thought I did such a great job and everybody loved it,” says Tobin. It occurred to her that perhaps this sort of thing could be a career. She’d made a lot of connections in Philadelphia and knew a number of entertainers, including music legend Patti Labelle. When Tobin decided to move to Los Angeles she imagined the entertainment capital of the U.S. would be an ideal place for her to launch a career in public relations. Los Angeles, she thought, wouldn’t be any different than Philadelphia.

“L.A. was just a little slow, a little behind the times in terms of jobs and people who were go-getters being able to get something out here,” says Tobin. “This whole ethnic diversity thing that we’re talking about now? Well, in 1977 I don’t think they knew much about it. Being a woman of color and wanting to get into public relations in the mid-70s? It wasn’t happening. And as aggressive as I am and ambitious as I am and all of those things that you need to get ahead –– it just wasn’t happening. But I wasn’t giving up.”

At first, Tobin thought the solution was to become an independent consultant. She did manage to land a couple of clients, like the actors Roger Mosley (”T.C.” on the Tom Selleck series “Magnum P.I.”) and Hal Williams (best known for roles on “Private Benjamin” and “227″). With a young daughter to support, though, it just wasn’t enough. She did some freelance writing and worked receptionist jobs to supplement her income. In the meantime, she made a point to attend events where she could introduce herself to celebrities and media people.

Finally, in 1979, two years after she’d arrived, Tobin landed a job as an administrative assistant in the press relations department at CBS television. “I learned so much,” says Tobin of her tenure at CBS. “There was a woman at CBS…Phyllis Kirk Bush, she had been an actress on the series ‘The Thin Man,’ and Phyllis was the media relations manager. I worked for her. She was a tough lady. If you wanted to work for her you had to be willing to learn. You couldn’t have thin skin. You had to be tough. I was a single mom with a daughter and had to take three buses to get to work, but I was ready to do whatever I had to do. Phyllis was a good woman to work for because you really learned how to write and how to make those media contacts…”

During her CBS tenure, Tobin also worked as a TV log editor, where she was responsible for writing the blurbs for all the network’s program information in TV Guide, and later worked with more than 200 affiliates for CBS Entertainment. Tobin says everyone she worked with supported her PR goals, and the network even paid for her continuing education at UCLA (where she worked toward her professional designation in public relations). In the end, though, in five years, Tobin never got the public relations position she coveted. “I believe we had one person of color who was a publicist at CBS back then,” says Tobin. “I’m not sure we have too many more, today.”

Tobin knocked on numerous doors, and even managed to get a meeting with Warren Cowan and Henry Rogers, founders of PR giant Rogers & Cowan. “Those guys were great but they offered me something like a secretarial position, and I was not settling,” Tobin recalls. “I had many years of experience by this time.” By the mid-1980s, the encounter with Rogers and Cowan had become old hat to Tobin. She’d meet great people. They’d tell her how wonderful she was, but she never got the job.

When Tobin wasn’t working at CBS and pursuing PR positions, she was busy organizing an event she called Media Night. This weekly happy hour gathering of professionals in entertainment and media began in 1980 with an event Tobin coordinated for CBS sports anchor Jim Hill. The party, at a nightclub called The Speakeasy, was so successful and so full of bold-faced names, that the nightclub’s manager asked Tobin if she’d like to organize events on a regular basis. The Thursday night gathering would last for a decade.

By 1984, Tobin had decided a radical move was in order. “The Los Angeles Times wrote that I got tired of knocking on doors, so I opened my own doors,” says Tobin. “I had a lot of contacts, knew a lot of people. The weekly Media Night event was so successful and such a big draw for people in the industry. I took a leave of absence from CBS…”

During her leave, Tobin laid the groundwork for the independent agency she would found. She worked for the 1984 Olympics in the international press department and was Jesse Jackson’s statewide fundraising director for his 1984 campaign for President, both positions that provided advantageous contacts. She gradually began to attract clients. The first big break for Tobin’s burgeoning PR agency? A little-known (at the time) director named Spike Lee. “We always say that we helped to put Spike on the map,” says Tobin.

She was introduced to the young filmmaker when Lee was shopping his first feature film, 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It.” “We were at a National Association of Black Journalists convention and we were watching ‘She’s Gotta Have It.’ Anna Marie’s [Horsford] sister, Victoria, said ‘they’re not doing much with this on the West Coast. You need to talk to these people at Island Pictures,’” Tobin recalls. “I got on the phone right then and set up an appointment. I didn’t wait until I got back to L.A.”

Her proactive move paid off. Tobin, who was now owner of Tobin & Associates, worked on “She’s Gotta Have It,” and two more of the indy director’s films –– “School Daze” and “Do The Right Thing.” She helped make Lee a household name, and because the filmmaker was adamant about inclusion, the work Tobin did with Lee helped foster then-radical ideas in the industry. “They’re calling it diversity now, but back in the day there was little involvement from the studios with people of color,” says Tobin. “They didn’t know anything about going to beauty shops or making sure the hair dressers and churches and barber shops –– people in our community –– had an opportunity to know about films that were coming out.”

By 1985, Tobin had sublet office space right down the street from her old job at CBS and partnered with a young woman who’d worked with Speakeasy, the home of Tobin’s Media Night event. It wasn’t until 1988 that Tobin landed a client that would push Tobin & Associates to the next level.

In the mid-1980s the Japanese prime minister made a derogatory comment about African-Americans and Japanese corporations doing business in the States were feeling the fallout. Tobin wrote letters pitching her company and her expertise to several Japanese-owned companies, including Hitatchi, Toyota and Sony. Toyota asked for a meeting. Because of Tobin’s experience with community groups, her celebrity contacts and her event management experience, Toyota signed Tobin & Associates to a contract that has lasted through the present day. Tobin’s team consults with the automaker on diversity outreach for special events and educational projects, and helps coordinate the company’s presence at conventions. “Once we landed Toyota as a client I was feeling very comfortable,” says Tobin. “I’m so excited about the opportunities [with Toyota] –– still, 17 years later.”

These days, Tobin & Associates is still housed in the Sunset Boulevard building Tobin first leased in 1984, but the two-person staff has grown to ten. Additional staff is brought in as needed for special projects. The firm’s client roster has included Essence Entertainment, the 2003 and 2004 BET Awards, Judge Mablean Ephriam (FOX-TV’s “Divorce Court”), The Cochran Firm (Tobin and fellow PR veteran Terrie Williams teamed up to work together on Johnnie Cochran’s funeral services), Fitzgerald’s Casino & Hotel –- the only Black-owned casino in Las Vegas, located downtown –– and many others. Recently, Tobin established a relationship with the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and works on the agency’s bi-annual national conference.

Tobin has built her firm into one of the largest and most respected African-American PR agencies in the country. Media interests large and small, from giants such as Time magazine and CNN to small community newspapers, call on Tobin’s expertise for communicating with ethnic markets. Her accomplishments have been recognized with a raft of awards, including Minorities in Business magazine’s 2003 “Entrepreneur Spirit” Award; the 2002 NAACP ACT-SO Virna M. Canson Award; and the 2001 National Association of Women Business Owners “Member of the Year” Award.

Ask her what the future holds and Tobin shoots back without hesitation: “The Tobin School of Public Relations. African-American people in any field, whether it’s business or accounting or public relations, we ought to have our own, like everyone else has their own.”

Tobin’s commitment to the success of African-Americans in media is embodied in the Black Public Relations Society, which she cofounded in 1983. More than 20 years later, the organization has chapters nationwide. At its yearly convention, a job fair attracts recruiters from some of the country’s largest PR firms and corporations and makes launching a career in public relations just a little bit easier than it was in 1977.

Though Tobin has built an impressive career in the industry she loves, she hasn’t slowed down a bit. The PR dynamo rarely takes vacations, but does make time for her best buddy –– her 13-year-old grandson, Aaron. The daughter Tobin raised as a single, ambitious mother has followed in her mother’s footsteps. Lauren Tobin is now publicity director at ABC Television (read Lauren’s profile in the October 2004 issue of The Monthly) and no doubt can trace some of her success to her mother’s advice: “Be confident, be enthusiastic and just know that you can do it,” Tobin advises. “Nothing is impossible if you really want to do it bad enough.”

AAPRC’s Mission
The African-American Public Relations Collective (AAPRC) is an assemblage of professionals who provide communication conduits among clients, journalists, media and our communities. We come together as a collective because we recognize the importance of building those same conduits amongst ourselves.

A great deal of what we do is professional development––updating our skills, keeping pace with technology, refining and streamlining processes, providing a forum to tackle the issues that impact our work environment––but we believe our professional lives benefit most from the forging of effective alliances. Connected to one another, we possess the power of a nationwide body of committed, knowledgeable practitioners with an eye on the future.

As we move into the 21st century at lightning speed, mass media and its potent messages occupy an ever-larger part of our daily lives and our collective psyche. The AAPRC is focused on helping our members gain a deeper understanding of media’s force and supporting their growth as powerful participants in the global communications network.

AAPRC’s Contact
GQ Media & Public Relations
1650 Broadway Suite 1011
New York NY 10019
1212 765 7910
1212 765 7905
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By Gwendolyn Quinn on 7/18/2005[read on] [4 comments]

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