News Item: Kevin Sullivan Communications
Career paths can crisscross back and forth. Take one Kevin F. Sullivan. A Purdue grad from Chicago who became the Dallas Mavericks' first assistant director of media relations in the club's inaugural year of 1980. Sully went on to become one of the very best Communications, PR, Media Relations and media services guys in the NBA's history. He did for team PRs what Brian McIntyre did for the league side.
Fast-forward a few years and Sully went from the Dallas Norm Sonju era to work for the failed Olympic bid of Dallas 2012 (no thanks to Atlanta '96, BTW). A few years later, Sully took on the tough top job as communications head for NBC Sports, the NBC Olympic property and a few hundred thousand other things like NBC Universal. Sully was Dick Ebersol's best hire ever, trust me.
Now, along came a press release one day that announced that Kevin F. Sullivan has accepted a job as Communications Director for the Secretary of Education, Margaret Spelling. Hmm? Interesting.... Some former Texas-area connections had turned the Education Department on to Sully's prior work and his ability to make it happen. A few more months went by and Sully met Dan Bartlett, then met Josh Bolten, then met #43, and poof. West Wing! Yahhoooo. Good for Sully.
Now, while we were on opposite sides of the aisle with political beliefs, I respected Sully's viewpoint and his loyalty to the POTUS and his country. He was trying his best and trying to help the USA.
Sully worked hard until Bush and Co hit the finish line on the day what Don MacLean would have called, "the Day the BuLLSH%$ died," January 20th, 2009 - thank God. Now Sully has gone on to a solo career in PR with a little Weber Shandwick clout behind him in DC. Pretty good stuff, I'd say for a Chicago kid who went from Purdue to work for Norm Sonju and Dick Motta in 1980.
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