Silimeo’s career path winds through broadcasting, government to public relations

National Press Club communicator member Debra Silimeo, recently named executive vice president of the public relations firm Hager Sharp, showed the journalistic and economic interests that would inspire her career as a fifth grader.

She published a newspaper covering her row-house neighborhood in the Philadelphia area and sold it for two or three cents. When she had a special issue on her father’s business trip to Alaska, she raised the price to five cents.

She initially ignored her early endeavor when she started college as an art major. But soon she switched to Temple University to study journalism.

“Art is a solitary practice and a reporter is always interacting with people,” said Silimeo, a member of the Club's Speakers Committee.

Journalism stoked her interest in “what is going on in the world,” Silimeo said. She devoured Time, Newsweek and other news publications around the family household.

She acknowledges the appeal of becoming a Brenda Starr, a glamorous reporter featured in a newspaper comic strip. “There was a little of that,” she said.

At Temple, she interned for a local radio station, taking the Associated Press “feed-in” every morning, which led to a job with AP in Washington, initiating a 10-year career in journalism. She worked for WEEL radio in Fairfax, WAMU, Channel 4 and WTOP.

In 1986, Silimeo was the second broadcaster to receive a Bagehot Fellowship, named for the founder of The Economist, to study journalism and business at Columbia University.

The fellowship offered an “opportunity to step away from the 24/7 atmosphere of journalism,” Silimeo said. While in the program, she decided that she wanted to be involved in “getting things done” rather than reporting them.

In 1987, she became communications director for the congressional Joint Economic Committee. When President Bill Clinton took office, she joined the staff of then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to work on passing the president's economic plan.

She then moved to the Clinton administration, first in communication and marketing for the Small Business Administration and then in the office of Commerce Secretary Bill Daly for the final year Clinton's term.

While working in the executive branch, Silimeo met Susan Hager, co-founder Hager Sharp, who was on the SBA’s advisory board. Silimeo asked Hager’s advice when she was considering a job change, and Hager invited her to join the firm. Silimeo became executive vice president of the 45-employee company this year.

Hager Sharp specializes in national public communication campaigns and social marketing. For example, the firm works on the National Diabetes Education Program at the National Institutes of Health.

Having experienced both sides of journalism, Silimeo said that as the field goes through wrenching change, it remains one of the “highest and best pursuits” and will continue to have an impact on society.

"There is always going to be a role for journalism,” Silimeo said.

Although industry contraction means fewer journalism jobs, the skills reporters develop translate into many other opportunities.

“I can’t tell you how valuable it is to be able to write well, to do some research and to compress it into a one-page story,” she said.