Testimonials

I had the pleasure of working with Jay as his supervisor at The Nature Conservancy for more than 10 years. Jay excelled at developing and implementing strategic, comprehensive and integrated marketing campaigns that drove targeted audiences to action. He is collaborative and creative. And his humor, ever-present sense of calm, and open heart make him an ideal colleague.

I had the opportunity to work with Jay and his well-oiled machine of travel writers. Under Jay’s direction, the team produced a ton of relevant content we used to propel Arkansas.com to become the highest-performing travel destination website at that time. We worked agilely to review data on searches and site visit patterns to forecast what people were looking for and quickly generate quality content that people really cared about. Importantly, Jay grasped the impact we could have with the newfangled World Wide Web and Email marketing tools before many others did. He learned the digital tools of the trade quickly and successfully led the teams to produce award-winning work over and over again.

Jay is as talented and multi-faceted a communications professional as you’ll ever meet. He’s an outstanding writer and story teller with a journalistic eye who can very quickly delve into complex subject matter and translate it into compelling and impactful content for a broad range of audiences—from the general public to business and philanthropic stakeholders.

During my time with Jay, he was far and away the most self-sufficient employee I’ve ever supervised. If anything, his insights, institutional knowledge, political acumen and strategic mind were invaluable to inform my own work as I stepped into my role heading communications for the Texas chapter.

It was incumbent upon Jay to develop and execute a multi-faceted annual marketing plan, which included strategic direction for the chapter’s leadership and board of directors regarding paid advertising, milestone events, reports, major donor fundraisers, public affairs and an array of deliverables. 

Jay was also one of the organization’s pioneers in video and multi-media story-telling. In the two years I spent with him he became the go-to internal resource for other state chapters to develop their own programs as adoption of digital and social media platforms became central to marketing, communications and fundraising strategies.

Also during the years I spent with him, Jay fortified connections and relationships with marquee media; because of him, the projects whose communications he spearheaded were also highlighted, among others, by the New York Times.

Jay has been critical to communications efforts of the Sustainable Rivers Program. His role has been especially important since 2020 as Sustainable Rivers expanded in budget, geography and impact. His work with videography and written communications pieces are particularly noteworthy.

I’ve worked with Jay for more than 12 years on a variety of video and storytelling projects. Jay consistently brought his own strengths in storytelling and project management to each video we worked together to produce. Each project resulted in some amazing video content and a really smooth, productive and positive process. We’re always looking forward to the next chance to collaborate with Jay!

I’ve known Jay Harrod for more than two decades–since he was at Arkansas Parks and Tourism. His knowledge about Public Relations covers a broad range that involves creating the story, managing media relations and getting good information about an organization out to wider audiences.