In 2012, the Miner Alumni Association board consolidated its committees into five groups with broad goals. This issue, we introduce you to the Marketing and Communications Committee.

Keeping the lines of communication open is the chief purpose of the Marketing and Communications Committee. “The prime directive — for you Star Trek
fans — is always to open and maintain the lines of communication between alumni, the Miner Alumni Association and the campus,” says Bernard Held, CE’75, a member of the committee.

Committee chair Darrin Talley, ME’88, adds that the committee works with alumni relations and marketing and communications staff at Missouri S&T to “develop content that communicates the overall benefits and objectives of the alumni association to current and future alumni.”

The group takes a data-driven approach. “We’ve spent quite a bit of time gathering input from alumni across the world, reaching out to both new graduates and alumni who have been out of Missouri S&T for a long time,” Talley says. “We have learned a lot about what alumni want to hear and how they want to receive communications. We plan on using these insights to more effectively communicate what the Miner Alumni Association is up to and what are some of the main objectives of the association’s other committees.”

During the past year, the 18-member committee assisted in a review of the recently redesigned association website and provided input on the creation of an alumni membership card, which is distributed to soon-to-be graduates at events during their final semester.

“The Miner Alumni Association has a lot to offer, and each of the committees works hard to create value for our alumni,” Talley says. “Our role is to develop the communications plans and material to get the message out to existing and future alumni. I feel like we have made great progress over the past year.”