In a bloody fight, Icahn also lost control of the company but skipped away with millions for his troubles, leaving Phillips, its people, its customers and Bartlesville forever changed. In fact, with the '80s kicking into high gear and "mergers and acquisitions" the new corporate watch-phrase, the rest of American business would undergo drastic change as well.

Phillips' Public Relations and Student Relations
At Phillips, public relations was playing an important role in many areas: counseling management through a vice president with a direct report to the maintaining solid relationships with the company's advertising and marketing efforts; producing in-house media training for management publishing a wide array of internal and external publications; managing successful youth-oriented programs and sponsorships such as U.S. Swimming and U.S. Diving; and overseeing a formalized outreach effort called the Public Relations Education Program (PREP).

Phillips management had long identified the college and university community as a "key constituency," realizing it encompasses tomorrow's thought leaders, including the journalists, public relations and advertising professionals of the future. Through PREP in those years between 1979 and 1983, Phillips public relations staffers spoke to communications students on well over 100 college and university campuses in almost every state.

"These weren't just one-class visits," recalls Dan Harrison, currently general manager of Phillips corporate affairs. "The schools worked us hard. Some of us almost applied for tenure," he jokes. Harrison says Phillips staffers made themselves available to students and faculty after class appearances, spoke with PRSSA groups, did interviews with campus print and broadcast outlets, and "listened to what public relations educators had to say about ways to better place students in professional situations."

|<-back| |cont->|