Dan Forbush joins Skidmore as new executive director of strategic communications
Vice President for Advancement Michael Casey has announced that Dan Forbush, founder and president of ProfNet, an Internet-based experts resource for reporters, will join the College as Executive Director of Strategic Communications, effective May 1.
Forbush will be responsible for a 14-member staff in marketing communications; Web communications; and community, media, and government relations.
Forbush created ProfNet (Professors Network) in the early 1990s while serving as associate vice president for university affairs at SUNY Stony Brook. He sold the service to PR Newswire in 1996 and, continuing to manage it, developed it into an international network of nearly 14,000 public relations professionals handling 30,000 reporters' queries annually.
"One of our top priorities in advancement is to use the full range of electronic and print media to tell the college's story and to nurture and grow the Skidmore community," said Casey. "With his record of innovation and breadth of experience, Dan Forbush is a perfect match for Skidmore."
Forbush has been recognized by PR Week as one of the 100 most influential PR people of the 20th century.
A 1975 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, Forbush began his career at Union College as news bureau manager. Later in the seventies, while working for a New Hampshire-based PR agency, he represented Skidmore to the national media. In 1984 he was named vice president for public relations and marketing communications at Syracuse University. He joined SUNY Stony Brook in 1998.
A resident of Stony Brook, Forbush will move to Saratoga Springs with his wife Rita. They have two sons: John, a second-year graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, and Reed, a senior at Hunter College.
