The first speaker I got to experience in my time at the PRSSA national conference was Mary Henige. Mary is the Director of Social Media and Digital Communications and Reputation Management at General Motors Company, she was also the Keynote speaker on Saturday, my second day in the city of brotherly love. Mary gave her address to a packed house, as it was the first session of the day! She was such a great and moving speaker. Although I have heard it before, one thing that she said really clicked with me, “it’s not just going to come to you, you have to work for it”. Despite having heard this saying a countless number of times in my lifetime, hearing her say it was almost like an epiphany. I realized that I should to start putting myself out there and going for my goals, instead of waiting for my goals to present themselves to me. Another subject that Mary talked about was her job at General Motors Company. I found it fascinating that the public relations and customer service departments at the company joined together to ensure excellent customer service and even better customer satisfaction. When she said that automotive industry public relations was big, I was shocked, I had never thought of the automotive industry to need public relations as much as they do. I think that it would even be interesting to learn more about this field to possibly obtain a job. The last thing that Mary said that is still fresh in my mind is that as communicators we should help those in different fields to teach them how to communicate more effectively. I se this as being true because we were given the gift of being able to be a successful communication, we should help others who may be more math oriented, like an engineer, to learn to be a better communicator to help them out in their professional interactions. Mary Henige will always be a woman I remember, respect and look up to as I begin my career in the public relations field. I hope to be even half as successful as she is, and still be so down to earth, like she is.