MediaWorks!07 event at Pellissippi State features Scripps executive

Susan Packard, president of Brand Outreach for Scripps Networks, is the featured speaker of an April 19 MediaWorks!07 event at Pellissippi State. The free presentation is 7-8 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. The public is invited to attend.

MediaWorks!07 is a series of events to showcase the College’s Media Technologies program and the Bagwell Center for Media and Art, currently under construction on the Pellissippi Campus. Media Technologies includes four concentrations: Communication Graphics Technology, Photography, Video Production Technology and Web Technology.

The event is sponsored by Pellissippi State in conjunction with Scripps Networks.

In her presentation, “Innovating Ideas Into Icons,” Packard will detail how great ideas can become great businesses, using HGTV’s rise to leadership in lifestyle media as an example. HGTV is owned by Scripps Networks.

The Pellissippi State Foundation will host a reception honoring Packard following her presentation.

A panel discussion by Scripps Networks representatives precedes Packard’s talk.

The discussion will focus on current issues and trends in video production, interactive Web and creative services, as well as employment opportunities at Scripps Networks. The panel includes Randy Armstrong, design manager, HGTV Creative Services; Sue Clark, vice president, Emerging Media; Loren Ruch, executive producer, Scripps Productions; and Chad Parizman, director of research and analytics.

The panel presentation, which is 1:30-2:30 in the Goins Auditorium, should be of particular interest to students.

Packard’s lengthy list of accomplishments includes helping launch the Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living TV Network and Great American Country. Since its beginning in 1994, Scripps Networks has developed some of the most relevant content available on television, the Internet and satellite radio and in books and magazines. HGTV is one of the fastest-growing cable networks in television history. The network is available in more than 91 million U.S. homes and distributed in 170 countries and territories.

In addition to her successes at Scripps Networks, Packard was a leader at HBO, helped found CNBC and has received numerous awards, including “Woman of the Year in Cable Television.”

She is active in national and local business and community affairs and received the E.W. Scripps William R. Burleigh Award for distinguished community service. She is chair of the East Tennessee YMCA board of directors, lectures at universities and is an advisor to Casa de Sara, an organization that fosters the education and health care of children and their families in Bolivia.

She also participates in job training programs for the homeless. In 2004 she became the first woman elected to serve on the board of directors of Churchill Downs Inc. She lives in Knoxville with her husband and son.

For more information about MediaWorks!07, call 694-6522.

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