Kudos: Keith Hickey is Our Man on the Scene
Congratulations to Keith Hickey, this month’s recipient of the Huck staff Kudos award. Keith’s job title is “marketing specialist,” which is pretty ironic for a guy who wears so many hats and does so many different things. In any given week, you might find Keith taking photos at Huck events and posting them to social media, writing a story about a Huck grad student who scored the cover of a journal; providing tech support for a podcast production; and adding new pages to the Huck website for yet another new center or institute. The man does not lack hustle!
Then there’s Keith’s daily routine, which is to capture and post all Huck-related news items – both internal to Penn State and in external media outlets. He makes sure every one of these items is tagged to the right Huck units and people, which is no small feat at such a large and complex organization.
But the really exceptional thing about Keith is his internal drive to push Huck marketing communication efforts forward with new ideas and initiatives, and then execute them with a consistent, non-nonsense, friendly and positive attitude.
“Just doing what's expected is never the case with Keith,” said Cole Hons, Huck’s director of communications and marketing, and Keith’s supervisor. “He consistently goes above and beyond his daily duties to bring new and creative ideas to the marketing communications of our graduate programs and our research.”
One example of Keith’s self-motivated projects is a series of graduate student testimonials, with photos and videos released through Huck’s social media channels. Another is the launch of a graduate students’ Science Trivia night, which launched during orientation this Fall, to help welcome new students into the Huck. The pilot version was a big hit, and the Huck communications team plans to re-create the experience for visiting journalists at the Science Writers Conference party at the end of October.
“Kudos to Keith Hickey for creating an entertaining and fun game of trivia for Huck graduate student orientation,” said Huck record specialist Jen Pierce. “Keith’s enjoyment of the process was obvious while he worked on putting together the sets of questions. His enthusiasm was clear as he talked it up leading up to the event. Overall it was a very successful and fun event and Keith was the all-around right person for this task! Thanks, Keith, and great job!”
We are truly fortunate to have such a good-natured, reliable and multi-talented professional helping to tell the Huck story every day!” added Hons.
The Huck Kudos program is designed to recognize these kinds of outstanding staff efforts, awarding the recipients with an extra day off work. Each month, kudos are collected from anyone in the Huck who wants to recognize a staff member going above and beyond the call of duty. To send in your kudos for someone’s job well done, email your positive comments to Laura Drew:
