The Arthur W. Page Society honored two of the most respected names in corporate public relations during its 20th Annual Conference September 14-16 in San Diego. Willard D. (Bill) Nielsen of Johnson & Johnson was the 19th practitioner to be inducted into the Society's Hall of Fame, while Ann H. Barkelew of Fleishman-Hillard, Inc. will receive the Society's 4th annual Distinguished Service Award.

The Hall of Fame, which was started in 1984, honors leading practitioners for career achievement and outstanding contributions to the profession. The Distinguished Service Award was established in 2000 and recognizes an individual's contributions to strengthening the role of public relations in our society.

Bill Nielsen's 30-plus-year career is filled with many outstanding achievements and contributions. He is currently corporate vice president of Johnson & Johnson and is responsible for public relations and corporate communications for the worldwide health care products company. He joined Johnson & Johnson in 1988, following an 18-year career as a public relations agency consultant, first with Carl Byoir & Associates, from 1970 to 1986, and then Hill and Knowlton.

From J&J corporate headquarters in New Brunswick, NJ, he oversees the public affairs responsibilities and activities of a widely diversified and decentralized "family" of 197 operating countries in 54 countries around the world. In a recent book, The Power of Corporate Communication by Paul Argenti and Janis Forman, his management style was praised for making sure that a highly decentralized organization was speaking with one voice.

Nielsen's professional accomplishments include leadership of an eight-year public relations and advertising image-improvement program for the pharmaceutical industry and a 10-year, nationwide child injury prevention campaign, which has reduced the annual rate of unintended injury and death among children by nearly 30 percent.

Nielsen has long been active in the leadership of professional organizations in the field of public relations. He has been a Trustee of the Arthur W. Page Society since 1993 and served two terms as President. He is a past chairman of the Public Relations Seminar. Nielsen also chaired the Board of the Institute for Public Relations and served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Global Public Affairs Institute. He is presently a member of the International Public Relations Association, The Wisemen, the National Press Club, the Foreign Press Association and the Public Relations Society of America. He has won four PRSA Silver Anvils. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Barkelew is a senior counselor of Fleishman-Hillard and the retired founding general manager of the agency's Minneapolis/St. Paul office. She has more than 35 years of top management experience with Fortune 100 and small-to-mid-cap companies.

Her primary areas of expertise over her long career run the gamut of public relations management and policy-making. They include strategic internal and external positioning of companies; counseling senior management; managing media relations and crisis management; mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; shareholder communications; dealing with special interest and pressure groups; integrating all aspects of internal and external communications; re-engineering; and overall reputation management.

With Fleishman-Hillard, Barkelew has provided counsel and project support to senior management of New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ corporations, professional sports organizations and privately held companies. She personally conducts corporate-wide public relations needs assessments projects for CEOs that include recommending strategies and action plans for effective public relations, organizing public relations functions and finding the right candidates for positions.

From 1982 to 1994, Barkelew served as vice president of corporate public relations for Dayton Hudson Corporation and was responsible for all internal and external communications for one of America's largest general merchandise retailers (now Target Corporation). Prior to joining Dayton Hudson, she was vice president of corporate affairs for Munsingwear, Inc.

Barkelew has been honored many times during her public relations career. In 1995, she was named by her peers internationally as "Public Relations Professional of the Year;" in 1999, CityBusiness named her one of the Most Influential Women in Business; and in 2001, she received Fleishman-Hillard's Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1985, Barkelew was one of 85 women identified in Industry Week as the most prominent women business executives in the United States. In 1989, she was named a "Public Relations All-Star" in the first year of Inside PR's All Star program.

Barkelew has been a Trustee of the Arthur W. Page Society since 1993 and has served as both vice president and secretary of the Society. She is a past member of the PR Seminar and an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America, serving at one point as chair of the PRSA College of Fellows. She is also a past president and accredited member of the National School Public Relations Association and co-founder of the North American Public Relations Council.

About the Arthur W. Page Society

The Arthur W. Page Society is a professional association composed primarily of the chief communications officers (CCOs) of the world's top multinational corporations, and the CEOs of the world's largest public relations agencies. The organization's members also include academics from the leading business and communications schools.

The Page Society is dedicated to strengthening the management policy role of chief communications officers. The Page Society is upheld by management concepts, known as the Page Principles, which have been tested for more than half a century and have earned the support and respect of chief executive officers throughout the country. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Arthur W. Page Society.