MASTER COMMUNICATOR

The Master Communicator award is Canada’s Award of Distinction and is sponsored by IABC Canada (Regions 1 and 2). Each year, it recognizes up to two outstanding Canadian communicators whose work has brought credit to IABC, the profession, the organizations they worked for and whose contributions have raised the standards of organizational communication in Canada.

To learn more, click on the following link:
http://canada.iabc.com

The following are IABC/Toronto member Master Communicators

• Edward K (Ted) Belt (1980), MC (deceased)
• Eric Bergman (2002), ABC, APR, MC
• Christopher Bunting (1997), ABC, MC
• Ken Cherney (2005), ABC, APR, CSC, MC
• Wallace L. (Wally) Court (1980), ABC, APR, MC
• Jacqui d'Eon (2008), ABC, MC, P. Eng
• Roger Feather (1982), ABC, MC
• Ray Lister (1982), MC
• Annette Martell (1998), ABC, MC
• Sharon Paul (1983), ABC, MC
• Bill Rattray (1982), MC (deceased)
• Roberta Resnick (1992), ABC, APR, MC, Fellow
• Kay Staib (1980), ABC, MC (deceased)
• George Watson (1980), MC
• Janet Wile (2007), ABC, APR, MC

Eric Bergman, ABC, APR, MC

Master Communicator 2002
IABC/Toronto Past President (1994/1995)

Eric has been a self-employed communicator since 1985 and has managed many communications programs including advertising campaigns, media relations, and issues management.

Today he owns Bergman and Associates and focuses on communications training and issues management for senior leadership. He has been accredited since 1991 and has been a key influencer locally and globally in the areas of entrepreneurship, ethics and accreditation.

Eric joined IABC in Edmonton in 1982. He later moved to Toronto and started volunteering at the local level as a writer with Communicator, the IABC/Toronto newsletter. He eventually moved onto the board when IABC/Toronto had fewer than 600 full-time members. He overhauled the financial practices of the chapter and hired a professional accountant. Eric then took the role as VP Membership and led the first-ever membership survey in Toronto.

Eric was President of IABC/Toronto in 1994 when the chapter received Awards of Merit in the Chapter Management Awards for Professional Development and Financial Management and for the first time had a membership that hit 1,000, making it the largest chapter in IABC.

He participated on the district board and then moved to international level positions - on the international accreditation council and the program advisory committee for IABC's 2000, 2001 and 2002 International Conferences. Eric has marked many accreditation exams in the past several years. He has personally mentored many IABC/Toronto members pursuing accreditation to help demystify the process. He has accepted speaking opportunities on Entrepreneurship in Canada and at the International Conference and recently created the ethics quiz, which is now part of the portfolio portion of the accreditation process. He is passionate about the value of accreditation and the importance of ethics.

Ken Cherney, ABC, APR, CSC, MC

Master Communicator 2005

In Ken Cherney's nomination to Master Communicator, a colleague wrote: "As a mentor, Ken always took time out of his busy day to talk through issues, provide sound counsel, and share insights based on his wealth of corporate communications experience."

Ken began his career as a reporter-photographer in Southern Ontario in the early 1970s. He entered the public sector in Manitoba before moving on to spend 23 years with Inco Limited. Today Ken owns and operates his own communications consultancy, Ken Cherney and Associates Inc. in Toronto, offering research, writing, project management and strategic communications planning for clients' internal and external audiences.

Ken has been a tireless contributor to IABC. His history of volunteerism in communications predates IABC in Canada. In 1972 while attending his first meeting with the Winnipeg Chapter of Corporate Communicators Canada, he found himself recruited for a chapter executive position.

Since then he has held chapter executive positions in Winnipeg and Toronto and on the Canadian District Boards. Accredited since 1975, he was an active member for two terms on IABC's International Accreditation Board and Council and has proctored countless accreditation exams in North America and Europe.

He has received 30 awards for annual report project management, internal/external communications, and video production. He frequently judges industry awards competitions. In 2006, his nomination for the Ontario Premier's Award described him as "a pioneer in the field of modern corporate communications."

Wallace L. (Wally) Court, ABC, APR, MC

Master Communicator 1980
IABC/Toronto Past President 1967/1968

One of the pioneers of IABC International, Wally started his communications career with British American Oil Company (now Gulf Canada) in 1957 in the firm's Public Relations Department, and was appointed editor of the company's employee magazine Commentator in 1961. Over the next 20-year period, the magazine earned more than 145 local and international awards for editorial and communication excellence including three Silver Anvil Awards from the Public Relations Society of America.

Wally was active in association work at the local, national and international levels including terms as program, membership and nominating chairman, and in 1967 as president of the Toronto Chapter of the Canadian Industrial Editors Association (CIEA). A member of CIEA's national executive for nine years, he served eight years as CIEA's representative to The International Council of Industrial Editors (ICIE), and one as treasurer. He was elected president of the CIEA national body in 1968, and later served five terms as the association's executive secretary.

As ICIE's vice-president of international affairs, he played a major role in developing the concept of a world-wide association of industrial communicators. As CIEA's international representative, Wally participated in the negotiations leading to the amalgamation of the CIEA, ICIE and The American Association of Industrial Editors, and the formation, in 1970, of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Wally received an IABC Canada life membership in 1973 and was made an IABC Fellow in 1977.

Jacqui d'Eon, ABC, MC, P. Eng

Master Communicator 2008

A native of Halifax, Jacqui is a graduate of Saint Mary’s University and Dalhousie University. She is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario and has more than 30 years of business experience.

During her lengthy and varied career, Jacqui has acted as a key strategic contributor in many demanding situations: as a consumer relations department head advising Canada’s leading packaged goods manufacturer; as a crisis communications specialist during a controversial product launch; as the principal of her own public relations consultancy.

In 2005, Jacqui was named Deloitte Canada’s first Chief Communications Officer. In addition to leading Deloitte’s internal and external communication programs, she consults daily with the firm’s partners on risk and reputation matters. She also acts as Deloitte’s national spokesperson with the media, professional institutions, government agencies, and other stakeholders.

“Jacqui has added a new dimension to the words seasoned communicator,” says the 2008 chair of the Master Communicator selection committee Ken Cherney, ABC, APR, MC. “She can craft a multi-year strategic plan and then turn her attention to writing an article for the Internet. At the end of the day, she enjoys a welcome seat at the executive table as well as in the employee lunch room.”

Jacqui has been a member of IABC since 1997, and achieved her ABC in 2000. Since then, her IABC volunteer activities have centred on the accreditation process she so strongly believes in and supports, including grading portfolios, proctoring exams, serving on the IABC Accreditation Council, launching Toronto’s Accreditation College, and serving on the IABC/Toronto board as VP Professional Standards, 2004-2005 (and Director in the same portfolio in 2005-2006). 

Annette Martell, ABC, MC

Master Communicator 1998
IABC World Chair 2002/2003

Management consultant, Annette Martell, ABC, MC, is internationally recognized for her senior leadership, employee engagement, change communication strategies, executive counsel and strategic communication planning. She has more than 20 years of communication experience from a variety of international and national communication management positions.

Her career features more than 15 years in the financial services sector where she was charged with establishing and/or revitalizing the corporate communication function. As an Associate with the communication consulting practice of the international consulting firm of Mercer she worked with clients in banking, real estate and manufacturing.

Annette is the recipient of several national and international communication honors and awards. She is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) and in 1998 was named a Master Communicator by IABC.

In June 2002, Annette was elected as IABC’s chair of its international executive board. This is the highest office of IABC which today serves 16,000 communicators in 80 countries. She successfully led the 26-member international board of senior communicators through one of IABC’s most challenging financial periods. At the same time, she championed IABC’s bold international governance review and price restructuring.

Annette frequently speaks at international and national conferences.

Roberta Resnick, ABC, APR, MC, Fellow

Master Communicator 1992

Roberta (Bobbie) Resnick has more than 40 years of experience in public relations, employee and marketing communication, and consumer services with multi-national companies both in the U.S. and in Canada. She currently heads her own communication firm, Roberta Resnick & Associates, specializing in employee and marketing communication. The firm celebrated its 20th anniversary in October 2005.

In 1987, she helped design the original one-year graduate Corporate Communications program at Seneca College, Toronto, and taught advanced writing and several communications management subjects there for more than 10 years. She also taught employee communication management and marketing communications in similar public relations programs at Centennial College and Ryerson University (Toronto). She remains in touch with many of the more than 300 graduates of these programs...just a little payback, she maintains, to the field that has been so good to her over the years. Her former students continue to demonstrate enviable skill levels in ever more responsible positions with corporations and agencies or run their own successful consultancies across Canada, earning local and national awards for their work.

Accredited by both IABC and CPRS, Bobbie has been active in IABC - and its predecessor organization, ICIE - since 1959, first in Chicago, then in Philadelphia, and in Toronto, where she has lived since 1972. She is a former IABC International Vice President (1974-76), a contributing author of IABC's A Communicator's Guide to Marketing, past chairman of the IABC Marketing Communication Council (1984-88) and a recipient of the IABC Chairman's Award (1987). She was named a Master Communicator in 1992, one of 10 Toronto Chapter members at that time to receive the designation since the Canadian organization was founded in the 1940s.

Janet Wile, ABC, APR, MC

Master Communicator 2007

Janet Wile is an award winner and she has the track record to prove it. During the period 2001 to 2006 alone, she won 17 communications awards.

Janet has served more than 25 years in the corporate, agency and government sectors. Prior to joining Barrick Gold Corporation in Toronto in 2006 as Director, Internal Communications, she held management roles in communications with the major engineering and electronics firms, Siemens Milltronics and Honeywell Limited, the international agency Burson-Marsteller, the Calgary Regional Health Authority and the governments of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

During her career she has served IABC at the local, national and international levels, and other organizational communication and community organizations in various capacities. She is accredited by both IABC and CPRS. Janet has been an accreditation examiner, grader and proctor for many years and sat for a term as Director of Exams on the IABC Accreditation Council. She is a familiar face as a judge in local, national and international communications awards programs and is well known as a mentor.

Originally from Windsor, Nova Scotia, Janet holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Acadia University and Master's degrees in both Arts and Public Administration from Queen's University.

In a letter of reference for Janet's nomination, Karen Schwartz, ABC, said: "Janet deserves to win the designation of Master Communicator - it's the way so many think of her anyway...let's make it official."