PRSA Midwest District Conference 2023

President and Co-Founder of Blue Compass, Drew Harden has grown and guided the company from a two-person start-up in 2007 to one of the Midwest's leading digital marketing companies today.

He's a published author, has been cited by publications like USA Today and PR News, and has led web projects for clients like Spalding Sports Equipment, NAPA Auto Parts, and the NFL.

Drew serves his team by casting Blue Compass' vision, guiding company direction, and maintaining a positive, nurturing workplace. He is passionate about creating an incredible company culture and providing servant leadership.

Drew speaks at conferences around the country on topics like company culture, leadership, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He loves positive thinking, motivating people and has a passion for faith, family, & freedom. Drew lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife Melissa and sons Ethan and Chase.

Dr. Felicia Blow, APR, is an award-winning leader with extensive organizational, fundraising, strategic planning, leadership and management experience. With a 30-year career spanning work in Manufacturing, Waste Management and Environmental Services, Telecommunications; and Higher, Dr. Blow currently serves as Associate Vice President for Development at the renowned historically black institution Hampton University. 

At Hampton, Dr. Blow led the university’s $150 Million Dream No Small Dreams II Campaign as its campaign director. That campaign concluded 2019 and exceeded its goal in raising more than $166 million in support of university priorities.  She also has earned the Accredited in Public Relations credential, by PRSA. Dr. Blow earned her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Media Arts from Hampton University; her Master’s in Business Administration degree from Strayer University; and her Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Old Dominion University. 

Michael Bugeja, distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences, teaches media ethics and technology and social change at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. He is a dual citizen of Malta and the United States.

He came to Iowa State in 2003 as director of the Greenlee School and served 14 years, earning college and university top administrator awards and the 2015 Scripps Howard Administrator of the Year Award. That year he was elected to the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. The Iowa Newspaper Association honored him in 2017 with the Distinguished Service Award.

Dr. Bugeja’s research has been published in Journalism Quarterly, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, Journalism Educator, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, New Media and Society, Journal of Communication, American Journalism, American Communication Journal, and other scholarly publications. He was among the first scholars to criticize Facebook in January 2006 with the publication “Facing the Facebook” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, cited more than 280 times according to Google Scholar, which ranks him third with 1158 citations in media ethics/technology and social change. His 2007 investigative articles about the use of Second Life virtual reality in college campuses—“Second Thoughts About Second Life” and “Second Life Revisited”—prompted several institutions to reconsider that platform because of exposure to inappropriate avatars and content. His co-authored book with Daniela Dimitrova, Vanishing Act: The Erosion of Online Footnotes and Implications for Scholarship in the Digital Age (2010), was among the first scholarly works to chronicle linkrot, or how footnotes based on URLs disappear in peer reviewed journals, jeopardizing the scientific method. Drs. Bugeja and Dimitrova recommended digital object identifiers as the solution, currently in use.

Stephen Dupont, APR, Fellow PRSA, is vice president of public relations at Pocket Hercules, a Minneapolis creative and branding firm. Dupont is a public relations/branding professional with 30 years of experience who specializes in marketing communications. He also is a professional futurist who helps organizations strategically communicate their desired future. He serves as the editor of Compass, an international quarterly online magazine published by the Association of Professional Futurists. Dupont writes and speaks frequently about the intersection between communications and foresight and is a frequent contributor to PRSA's Strategies & Tactics magazine. To learn more, visit his blog at stephendupont.co or his LinkedIn page, linkedin.com/in/stephendupont.