Profile

Deborah L. Folka, Principal Consultant

Deborah L. Folka, APR has been a public relations professional for over 25 years. In the early part of her career, she was the Director of Communications for a variety of private companies and public sector organizations and since 1993 has been an independent consultant based in Vancouver. Deborah has worked with a large number of professional organizations and associations including the BC Orthopaedic Association, the Chartered Accountants of BC, the Architectural Institute of BC, the College of Dental Surgeons of BC, the Canadian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver and the College of Registered Nurses of BC.

A seasoned and accomplished communicator, she has developed a specialty in issues and crisis communications management, though Deborah’s portfolio of skills and experience includes all aspects of public relations – i.e. research, analysis, implementation and evaluation of all communications programs, internal and external. She has been responsible for the creation, supervision and production of virtually any type of communications – newsletters, magazines, websites, media releases, ad campaigns, demographic and attitudinal research projects, student or member recruitment and retention campaigns, etc.

Deborah earned an undergraduate degree in Communications from the University of Washington, a graduate degree in Journalism from the University of Arizona and is an accredited member of the Canadian Public Relations Society and the Counselors Academy of the Public Relations Society of America. President of the Canadian Public Relations Society - Vancouver in 1995–96, she was awarded The Pat Monk Memorial Award in 2000 for leadership and contribution to the public relations profession. She has also taught communications at Douglas College, Vancouver Community College, Kwantlen University College and at the University of Arizona.

In the community, Deborah is an on-air volunteer for KCTS Public Television in Seattle and from 2008–2010 was appointed by the provincial government as a public representative on the Board of Directors of the College of Dental Surgeons of BC. In those same years, she provided pro bono counsel to the international group of elite women ski jumpers who sued VANOC to get into the 2010 Olympics, resulting in global media attention and a Charter of Rights & Freedoms case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada (see Case Study).