Marking 28 Years of PR Agency Experience
With 28 years of PR agency experience, (W)right On Communications has earned trust during moments of change, scrutiny and transformation for our clients. While tools and media models evolve, our focus on credibility, reputation and outcomes remains constant.

By Julie Wright, President, (W)right On Communications
On January 2, 1998, I founded (W)right On Communications.
I launched the agency just a few months before Google entered the world and fundamentally changed how people find information. I couldn’t have predicted how dramatically communications, media and marketing would evolve over the next 28 years. It has been quite a ride. But I believed then and continue to believe today that organizations need trusted counsel to help them navigate change, respond to scrutiny and make the most of the moments that matter.
How PR Has Changed over 28 Years
My time at (W)right On Communications has given me a front-row seat to some of the biggest shifts our industry has ever seen:
- Early 2000s: The dawn of digital marketing, including PPC, SEO and content marketing.
- Late 2000s: The explosion, evolution and enshittification of social media, from the early days of Twitter and Facebook to today’s algorithm-driven, pay-to-play platforms and influencer culture.
- 2005-2024: Journalism’s collapse as its business model was upended and the related erosion of trust.
- Now: The rise of AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, which are once again reshaping PR and how people get their information.
Each wave has brought new tools, opportunities and risks. And each has reinforced my view that PR is more than publicity. It’s about shaping understanding, credibility and trust.
👉 Suggested Reading: “Rewriting the Rules of Search: PR’s Role in the AI Age.”
What a Senior-Led PR Agency Delivers Today
I launched the company as a one-woman show, originally in Vancouver, B.C. where I had an established network based on my early career there. Since then, referrals have been our lifeblood.
After 28 years, we’re still living our values as an agency. One important value for everyone on the (W)right On team has been to work with clients who inspire us. This value has kept the work meaningful and underpins our strong client relationships based on mutual respect.
As we’ve grown, we’ve stayed a senior-led strategic communications agency built to help organizations navigate complexity. Today, our work includes:
- Crisis and high-stakes communications, especially in regulated or highly scrutinized environments
- Long-term reputation and trust-building programs
- Integrated PR strategies that connect earned media, owned content, and paid social media
- AI-era visibility strategies to help brands show up accurately and credibly in AI-generated answers, not just in search results
AI has made PR even more vital in today’s marketing mix given its critical role in driving AI answer engine citations.
Industries Where Trust and Stakes are Highest
One of the things I’m most proud of are the relationships I’ve had the chance to build with our client partners. We’ve acquired deep knowledge across a number of industries that positively impact people:
Clean energy + cleantech
We’ve led PR programs for California’s investor-owned utilities and its community choice providers and helped innovators like Zenobē tell their impressive global fleet electrification and energy storage story, Luminia grow its distribution-level solar and storage project footprint for community clean power providers, and South 8 launch its novel battery electrolyte material that performs no matter how hot or cold the climate.
Senior living + healthcare
We’ve had the honor of working with seniors and telling their stories like when we introduced Greater Phoenix and the world to Mirabella at ASU, a university-based retirement community formed by PRS and Arizona State University. I’ve very proud of our proactive PR for Oakmont Senior Living, a recognized industry leader delivering premier environments, programs and amenities for seniors in California, Nevada and Hawaii. Oakmont’s footprint has more than tripled since we began our work together in early 2021. A favorite moment was our award-winning Valentine’s Day vaccination pitch for Oakmont of San Jose and two of its residents.
Cybersecurity + regulated industries
Keeping people and businesses safe from fraud with a cybersecurity client like ID Dataweb or unveiling Maravai Life Science’s new facility for manufacturing mRNA just months before the Covid-19 shutdown are great examples of B2B communications with impact. We’ve also been entrusted to tell the stories of several healthcare district hospitals and their charitable arms, community health centers, multifamily and senior housing developers and more. And working with a major California investor-owned utility gave us insight into nearly every aspect of its operations from new grid-enhancing technologies to community relations, energy efficiency, demand response and EV infrastructure.
Tourism + destination marketing organizations (DMOs)
(W)right On Communications’ many years supporting the San Diego Tourism Marketing District and Visit Napa Valley to communicate the benefits of tourism to local economies and quality of life inspired us to develop a program that supports smaller DMOs like Visit Modesto and others. Our insights in tourism are founded on our work with National Parks like Sequoia and Kings Canyon, attractions like the Queen Mary and hotels like Tenaya at Yosemite, Cape Rey Carlsbad and La Casa Del Zorro Resort + Spa in Borrego Springs.
Class action settlements and high-visibility legal matters
Because of our work with high-stakes lawsuits and other crises as well as with outreach and education programs, we were selected in 2023 to lead communications for the Payment Card Settlement, a $5.5-billion antitrust settlement for merchants from Visa and Mastercard. Our settlement PR campaign reaching millions of merchants has been a career highlight. We also helped support communications during high-profile lawsuits, state attorney general penalty announcements, global mergers between industry leaders and allegations of serious employee misconduct.
Nonprofits and public-interest initiatives
We’ve supported nonprofits through our PR programs, pro bono work, volunteering and donations. Our support of World Design Capital 2024 San Diego Tijuana stood out for helping put the binational region on the global map. We worked to save young lives through early detection of undiagnosed heart defects through Parent Heart Watch and its National Youth Heart Screening Day. Our longest standing client is New Haven Youth + Family Services, an education-focused nonprofit lifting up teen boys and helping them find their way from loneliness or anger to socialization and career competency.
Our work hasn’t been about chasing headlines or impressions. We’ve measured success based on the trust earned or preserved, projects approved, community support, product adoption or industry reputation when the stakes were high.
Why Experience and Mentorship Matter in PR
While campaigns and outcomes matter deeply, it’s the people that make the work meaningful.
Over 28 years, WOC has been home to talented communicators at every stage of their careers. I’m incredibly proud of the team members I’ve had the opportunity to mentor and watch grow into leaders. This is true whether the growth is inside our firm or beyond it.
Three of our early team members have enjoyed great careers after either getting their first job, or first San Diego job, with (W)right On Communications. Betsy Scuteri is now Director of Marketing Operations with Intuit’s Turbo Tax and earlier this year received Intuit’s CEO Award; Kelly Short is now Director of Corporate Communications for ResMed, and she just told me today that I was her first ever LinkedIn connection (honored!); and Chancelor Shay is a former intern who is now Director of Communications for Thermo Fisher Scientific’s genetic sciences and clinical next-generation sequencing businesses.
Former Communications Strategist Rebecca Gardon translated her passion for sustainable seafood into a career marketing and storytelling about the companies that are leading the charge. Kristina Houck has been an editor at Patch.com now for 10 years and has brought three beautiful boys into the world. Alex Mikhail is now an MBA candidate at the UC Irvine business school, and I love getting the occasional text from him nearly as much as I love getting Betsy’s annual holiday card. (Apologies to all of our agency alumni I’ve left out here!)
This feels like our true legacy after 28 years because we’ve always believed in:
- Senior-level involvement and the value of an agency-owner led model.
- Mentorship and professional development through lunch and learns, coaching and allocating time for it.
- Accountability and follow-through that signals real ownership of project results and client relationships.
- Pairing imagination with strategic insights and execution discipline—this is pretty much the trifecta of good public relations.
Recognition Along the Way
Atta girls and atta boys do count. PR agency work is hard. It can be thankless and frustrating with occasional moments of accomplishment and glory. With the pace of change and disruption I led off describing, it’s not a great career for folks who want to coast through their careers. That’s why (W)right On Communications’ awards and recognitions matter to us.
Our work and our people have been recognized by organizations including Forbes, Newsweek, PRNEWS, PRSA, IABC, the San Diego Press Club, San Diego Business Journal, San Diego Metropolitan and others.
Awards are never the goal, but they’re meaningful validation that the work stands up to scrutiny and delivers real value.
What Hasn’t Changed in 28 Years
- PR is about shaping understanding, not chasing attention
- Judgment matters more than tools
- Relationships outperform transactions
- Senior involvement protects credibility when stakes are high
What the AI Era Demands from PR
As we enter our 28th year, the communications landscape is once again in flux.
- AI is changing how information is discovered.
- Trust is harder to earn and easier to lose.
- Organizations are navigating more complexity than ever before.
(W)right On Communications is leaning into PR for GEO*. What gives me confidence isn’t any single tool or platform. It’s the same foundation that’s guided us since 1998:
- The judgment that comes from experience
- Relationships founded on trust so we can go into battle together
- Clear thinking and common sense in moments of uncertainty
I’m deeply grateful to our clients, partners, team members (past and present) and our broader community for being part of this journey. I’m excited about what’s ahead, and committed to continuing to help organizations earn attention for the right reasons and under whatever conditions the marketplace throws us. Afterall, it’s what we’ve been doing for the past 28 years.















