My co-worker, Justin, is on the local board of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), our professional association. He said he was interested in studying to attain accreditation in public relations (APR). Good for him, I thought. In fact, if he finds it useful, we just might include this among the stepping stones to a certain level of leadership for the PR staff in the firm. We’ll support you, let me know how it goes, I told him.

I hadn’t done it, studied for accreditation. Didn’t know much about it. PRSA was not part of the culture where I worked early in my career, and becoming accredited just didn’t come up in the 15 years since Linda and I founded our integrated communications firm in Kansas City. As PR defines itself as an “emerging” profession, having or not having the accredited designation is not decisive in our freedom to do the work. In fact, of the 275,000 the Bureau of Labor Statistics says work in public relations, only 5,000 have this designation.

Who really knows or cares what APR stands for anyway? Or, AICP, ASE, CCIM, CLU, ChFC, PE, SIOR (just a few of the certifications I pulled from names in my Outlook database)? In the professional designation alphabet soup sweepstakes, the clear winners are CPA, DDS, JD, and MD. Most people know what those mean, and really want you to have one if you are their service provider.

In recent years, I have come to appreciate the rigor required of strategic communications campaigns submitted for PRSA’s awards program. They have to show clear goal setting, strategy, steady execution, and measureable results for clients. The association’s professional development opportunities for co-workers also have value. So being the strategic thinker that I am, I tried (really, really tried) to think my way through justifying requiring accreditation of more junior staff when I had not required it of myself.

When you have a well-stated goal, it clears the decks for defining what you need to do, how much and by when – the architecture of any good plan. I wanted to know if accreditation should be among the considerations for advancement among our senior PR team members. I needed to participate, study and take the test myself to be credible in that decision making – and I needed to do so before I let my focus go elsewhere.

So I did. And here is what I learned: That the process validated the discipline and rigor our firm has long brought to strategic planning and campaign execution. That research should be front and center for any firm’s in-house capabilities, not relegated to the specialist closet. That I really don’t like theory. That while accreditation alone is insufficient preparation for firm leadership, it is a worthy building block in the foundation.

I did pass, I am relieved to say, accredited in public relations. Now I know what it means.

This year, I’ve asked our intern applicants to submit a cover letter that explains why they chose to pursue a career in public relations. I decided to take this approach for several reasons, the most important of which is a desire to find candidates who really “get” what it means to work in this industry, and want to do it for the right reasons.

It occurred to me that if I expect others to articulate a clear and compelling rationale for why they pursued a career in PR, I should be able to do the same. So the following is my response to that question.

From a very early age, there were lots of signs that I would end up in this field. I was extroverted, loved analyzing and constructing arguments, enjoyed learning new things (especially when they were complicated), and was always fascinated by current events (particularly news related to government and business).

But just because you have certain personality traits, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re destined to work in a particular field.

The real defining moment came when I was a freshman in high school. You see, when I was in eighth grade, my mom passed away after a long battle with HIV/AIDS. This was back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s – a time when this disease was making headlines and causing fear, and prior to the advent of “the cocktail” of medications that has improved and extended the lives of people living with HIV.

Her diagnosis as HIV-positive was an ironic turn of events, because prior to her own diagnosis, she had volunteered at the local health clinic providing HIV counseling and testing. She also spoke to community groups about the disease, making her among the first wave of volunteers in Maine to do so.

After learning she was HIV-positive, she continued speaking and training, but instead of talking from the perspective of a health professional, she spoke as a person living with the disease.

She was just one of many voices working hard to change and shape the national dialogue about this new and scary topic…and I saw first hand what happened as a result of those efforts.

I watched as school districts changed policies to encourage better education about the disease. I saw support services expand and people’s attitudes begin to shift. And close to home, I witnessed our community overwhelm my family with love and support at a time when other families in similar situations in other parts of the country were ostracized and maligned.

When she passed away, I knew it was my turn to be part of the solution. I spoke to my school board. I did interviews in the newspaper. I visited other schools and talked to kids my age about HIV/AIDS. And as luck would have it, it turned out that I was pretty good at this public relations thing.

When I started thinking seriously about college, I figured out that I could actually make a living using these skills. So I went to the University of Southern Maine and double majored in communication and political science. From there I went to the University of Kansas for graduate school, where I studied how rhetoric shaped public discourse and popular opinion.

After KU, I moved to Kansas City and started at Sturges Word. My clients come from a wide variety of industries. Some are government, and some are corporations. Some are for-profit, others not-for-profit. All are doing things that make the communities, customers and clients they serve better and stronger…and every morning, I get to wake up, walk down 9th Street, sit at my desk, and do my part to take their complicated ideas and make them understandable to the world. And that’s really cool.

Once completed, everyone received a printout of their most compatible career field. The library was abuzz with students sharing their results. At the time, I knew nothing about communications, so you can imagine my disappointment when that’s what my printout read. I pondered, “What is communications?”

But I didn’t dare question the results of the quiz and began to research this mystery field. In doing so, I discovered that people in communications work in broadcast media, not-for-profits, corporate communications, marketing, advertising, the government/public sector….the list went on. How was I ever to choose a path?

I eventually decided on journalism and joined the communications program at William Jewell College, as well as the campus publication, The Hilltop Monitor. During my time as a staff writer, I realized the difficulty in telling the whole story while reporting. Some say that sunshine is the best disinfectant, but in shining light on a topic, it’s hard to report on all the complicated little details that effectively tell both sides of any issue…especially with a 300 word count.

While this challenged me, I very much enjoyed working with the other reporters, interviewing and getting to know the faculty and staff, and being at the helm of my campus community.

That’s when I discovered my niche within the field of communications. Public relations. When you get down to it, this industry is about telling stories. Sharing the positive stories, managing the not-so-positive stories, halting the untrue stories, but above all, telling the entire story. It’s about being an advocate for a business or organization, whether it’s popular or not, and working with the media to report what my clients have to say.

So what can I, and fellow business communicators, learn in reflecting on our humble beginnings? For me, it’s to continue telling the stories that make a difference for my clients and the community. To give a voice to those that may not be heard, in ways that positively impact their business. That, and never underestimate the power of a career quiz. Being one of the few out there who actually planted the seeds of a career based on their high school quiz, it’s been quite the conversation starter.