Epley, Joe

Doing What's Right

Epley was first recognized as a significant public relations leader during and immediately after 1986, when he served as chair of the Counselors Academy of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Using this platform, he became perhaps the leading advocate in the field for higher professional standards and has held a PRSA leadership position without interruption for more than 20 years.

While Epley was becoming president of PRSA in 1991, many African American members said they would not attend the national PRSA conference in [Page 292]Phoenix because the state of Arizona had elected not to celebrate the Martin Luther King holiday. Moving the conference to another city would have cost PRSA about $500,000 in contractual penalties. Nevertheless, Epley said, “We cannot have a conference at a location in which many of our members would not participate on moral grounds” (Epley, personal communication, 1991). Epley's solution was to call a special meeting that included the PRSA board, representatives of PRSA's chapters in Arizona, members of PRSA's cultural diversity committee, and other trusted advisers. Epley offered the assistance of several nationally prominent PRSA members who understood political campaigns and who would assist Arizona's PRSA members in helping to wage a statewide election that ultimately made that state the first to establish a Martin Luther King Day by popular vote. The theme of the 1991 PRSA conference in Phoenix was “What's Right?” Epley has said, “Our focus has to change from ‘building awareness’ to ‘building relationships,’ from ‘educating’ to ‘persuading.’ We do that by paying as much, if not more, attention to personal, corporate and product reputation as we do to promoting products and ideas” (1999, n.p.).

Epley has been careful to reject potential clients that do not fit his standards. For example, he was asked to counsel controversial PTL evangelist Jim Bakker when Bakker first emerged as a target of editorial criticism in the early 1980s. After conducting his own research, Epley turned down the offer, explaining, “We weren't going to work for somebody who deceived his constituents, and who we believed would not change his ‘off-camera’ behavior” (Epley, 1999, n.p.).

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