Testimonials

“Sharon Geltner demonstrated a talent for assembling complex facts into comprehensible stories.  What’s more, she accomplished this with great dispatch, thus demonstrating the ability to work under deadline pressures.  She was also highly productive—extraordinarily so….In addition to [newspaper] stories, Ms. Geltner contributed numerous shorter items which appeared in my column, a television commentary that was used on my Good Morning America (ABC) segment and a steady supply of reports that made their way into my daily radio show on the Mutual Broadcasting System. In sum, Ms. Geltner is enthusiastic, aggressive and self-starting.” -Jack Anderson, Syndicated columnist, Washington, D. C.

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“I want to highly recommend Sharon Geltner. She is a real pro, perhaps our best reporter.  She is energetic, tenacious, insightful and an excellent writer.” -Wayne Ezell, Editor of Boca Raton News

“It’s a great article…You really capture the complexity of the woman’s personality. And I’m impressed with all the national press you got.” -Frank Proctor, Marketing Department, Newsweek International New York, NY

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“Sharon was the only reporter, of more than 100 applicants, we hired for the Knight-Ridder project. She stood out [due to her] smarts, her persistence, her eye for a story and her love of the chase, [which] made her an outstanding choice. She could write long and well and get information from a variety of sources.  In Boca, she handled every assignment with panache, from the woman who sold earrings made of condoms to Israel in wartime. Actually I should be calling them assignments. In almost every case, Sharon generated her own ideas and they were better than anything editors could have come up with. If you select her, you’ll be congratulating yourself on your good judgment a year from now. That’s what happened to us.” -Lou Heldman, Editor, Tallahassee (FL) Democrat

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“Her magazine experience and her Washington contacts should valuable to us as we try to broaden our scope of coverage.” -Mike Smith, Managing Editor & Steve Krizman, City Editor, Boca Raton (FL) News

“Her coverage of the securities and commodities markets and the officials who regulate them made for entertaining and informative reading. Scooping the dailies was also a strong suit of Geltner’s.”

“Geltner had a wide ranging and complicated beat which covered many different aspects of the financial services industry, which is rapidly changing every year, causing conflicts among bankers, brokers, futures traders, etc. Some of her outstanding stories dealt with stock and futures exchanges quietly lobbying Capitol Hill and executive agencies for tax breaks, turf fights among government regulators and Congressional conflicts with Administration appointees.”

“We have used Geltner’s scoops as the basis for advertisements for [our financial] newsletters.” -Tom Lamont, Editor ,Wall Street Letter (an Institutional Investor newsletter) New York, NY

 

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“Your articles are at once passionate and persuasive.” -Martin Peretz, Editor-in-Chief, The New Republic Washington, D. C.

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“I enjoyed reading [your articles on Israel] and it was certainly all new information to me.” -A.M. Rosenthal, Columnist, New York Times

“Sharon was by necessity and temperament a “trail blazer” when we needed one most!  She is the senior member of the marketing team and an outstanding asset to a fast-growing company which was undergoing a change in leadership. Through it all, Sharon performed as the consummate professional. I’m most impressed by the way she garnered a prestigious full-page, glowing profile with a color photo of the CEO in Success magazine. The free publicity and nationwide exposure, in such a respected forum is of incalculable worth…Sharon was very accomplished in any task she undertook, almost all of them under pressure deadlines….She created a color-coded Customer Care Guide, to which our telemarketers refer dozens of times a day. She also designed brochures, case inserts, flyers, announcements, advertisements, wrote pres releases and revamped promotional publications into stylish, informative pieces….Sharon is a true idea person, very creative and also worked in audio and videotape media and wrote material ranging for corporate speeches to songs and poems. She transformed the internal company newsletter into a motivational, fun piece. Sharon is well organized and a detail person. She trained employees, developed the company’s first photo file....She is personally pleasant, very productive, hard working, has incredibly diverse skills and will be an asset to any company lucky enough to hire her.” -Tom Lupo, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Achievers Unlimited West Palm Beach, FL

 

 

“A striking example of this upside [the Internet serving humanity] is that an inventive use of the World Wide Web  has found Newsweek and MSNBC posting a link to one of Boca Raton based Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service’s websites.  That site, www.teentalk4u.org, provides free on-line counseling for teenagers all over the world...RRJFS is experimenting on reaching more people through the web,’ said Rales Communications Director Sharon Geltner...‘We think of the web as an ‘equalizer’ between gigantic corporations with huge advertising budgets and scrappy, small non-profits who want to help people—but can’t afford expensive promotional campaigns,’ said Geltner. ‘It’s an opportunity for us. It seems the Internet favors creativity in marketing social services and has been invaluable in our reaching out to people who need someone to list.…Mark Cherny, LCSW, noted, in the past two years, viewership of the agency’s main website itself, www.ruthralesjfs.org, has increased 40 percent each year. The site now gets more than 1.2 million hits a year....In July, our website surpassed 10,000 visits per month,’ said Rales CEO Dr. Jaclynn Faffer. ‘Even better, the average length of stay doubled from 18 minutes to 39 minutes from September to October. We want to be where our clients and supporters are and these days, for many of them, they are on-line…In addition, Youth Today, a monthly newspaper for professionals who help kids, cited RRJFS’ Teen Talk website as ‘a great web resources for counselors, teachers and others,’ said Geltner....Soon after, Teen Talk appeared on the Google rankings as number 11 out of 83,200 references on the web.”

“Just before Thanksgiving [2008; RRJFS] reached out to adults who are coping with the economy by offering confidential, e-mail counseling via www.depressionista.net and www.economycounseling.com. Ten days later, the sites appeared in Google’s top two sites out of 8.2 million possibilities on the web.” -John Johnston, Managing Editor, Boca Raton (FL) News [Sunday cover story]

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“While Geltner slashed the Yellow Pages advertising budget by 66 percent, calls for help to the [nonprofit] agency went up almost 20 percent and visits to counselors and media inquiries increased substantially. Donations rose by $60,000 in a 12-month period—all mainly due to increased word of mouth generated from a strategic community relations campaign.” -Shalom, Weekly supplement to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, FL

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“The 39-year-old, afflicted with cerebral palsy, lives at the mercy of his broken-down wheelchair…A local donor saw his story and understood. The donor, who asked to remain anonymous, has a 5-year-old with cerebral palsy. He called the Ferd and Gladys Alpert Jewish Family & Children’s Service and spoke with Sharon Geltner…. ‘He was touched by [our client’s] plight…’ Geltner said. Last Tuesday, the donor wrote a check. For $20,000. [The client] will have a new chair by March.” -Palm Beach (FL) Post

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“Geltner built the JFCS public relations department from scratch...” -Jewish Times, West Palm Beach, FL

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“The holiday campaign resonates over time and place. Sharon Geltner, public relations director for Jewish Family & Children’s Services in West Palm Beach, recalled the response to a story that ran four years ago. The article featured a woman who wanted to divorce her jailed husband but couldn’t afford to do so because his legal bills had left her penniless.  After the story appeared, a Boca Raton lawyer volunteered his service, Geltner said. Others in the community sent checks to help the single mother. ‘Do I think those articles work? Yes, they have a tremendous impact,’ she said.” -South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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“Mavis Leno and Sharon Geltner at the Alpert Jewish Family & Children’s Service luncheon at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach.”  [Photo]- Palm Beach Illustrated, West Palm Beach, FL

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“Geltner is among those I would invite to a small dinner party for the most interesting, delightful and engaging people I know. Asked on her employment application to describe her strengths, she quipped, ‘Persistent, energetic, optimistic, practical without being excessively cynical, thorough, careful, imaginative, smart, funny, organized – modest.’ She is all those things.” -Wayne Ezell, Editor, Boca Raton (FL) News [Op-ed commentary]

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“Started more than 30 years ago to control urban sprawl, the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations (COBWRA) has become much more effective and way more powerful than its founder Dr. Richard Carrington could have ever dreamed. With 100,000 residents under its wing, it represents such a big voting bloc that politicians listen and make reports at the monthly meetings. Developers preview their plans before the Growth Management Committee to make sure COBWRA is on board before county commissioners see them. Lisa Riddle, the new Web designer and Webmaster…surfaced through Sharon Geltner, who does volunteer public relations for the group.… [They] got to work on the plan for the redesign in June, presented a breakdown to the executive board in August and did periodic demos at the monthly meetings. Their biggest objective was ease of use.…The site has been up since Nov. 18 [2009] at www.cobwra.org, and they're getting good feedback.“ -Marci Shatzman, Boynton Forum and South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Thank you so very much for speaking to my class last week. Your presentation was quite interesting, and I know you made an impression on the students. Points you made have been brought up in class several times. You have an eas, natural way of addressing a group that, in my opinion, would make you an excellent candidate for teaching, should you ever decide to add to your professional activities. My students were especially fascinated by the fact that you have lived the near-universal journalist’s vision of reporting a crisis situation from a foreign country. Thanks again… -Lynn Laurenti, Assistant Vice President for University Relations, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL

 

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"Sharon is a skilled public speaker, engaging her audience in interactive presentations which not only hold their attention but leave them clamoring for more!" -Dr. Jaclynn Faffer, CEO, Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service, Boca Raton, FL

 

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Froogle PR lectures at Broward College and Palm Beach State College, both in south Florida. In addition, we have presented before: the Community Foundation of Broward; Nonprofits First state conference (West Palm Beach, FL); the Center on Nonprofit Effectiveness (Miami, FL); Vegso Community Center /Junior League of Boca Raton; WorkForce One (Davie, FL); Association of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies (San Diego, San Antonio) and will speak at the international conference of the Public Relations Society of America in Washington, D. C.

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Topics include: social media; crisis communications, effective business writing, etc. Don’t see it? Ask. This list is updated all the time. All suggestions welcome.

“Sharon’s…research, on unethical practices by Wall Street analysts, was later reprinted on the front page of the Bull and Bear and was the basis for a similar article on a similar topic in the Wall Street Journal. Sharon also helped me with articles on subjects such as avoidance of insurance sales scams, banks which are unqualified to sell money funds, and the unethical practices of HMOs.  Additionally, she coordinated the contributions of various departments -- stock market research, insurance research, and precious metals research—putting it into a useable format prior to press deadline....Sharon is a self starter who is always willing to go the extra mile and does not hesitate to become involved in areas that are beyond her realm of responsibility. For example, she was able to locate a source of free legal consultations for an ongoing company lawsuit. Also, because of her very talented research skills, she has frequently located sources of information that I didn’t know existed and was instrumental in the reorganization of our data library...Sharon has been a great resource for Weiss. She is always upbeat and cheerful, ready to pitch in and get the ball rolling on any project. Her intelligence and enthusiasm are [valuable] qualities.” - Martin D. Weiss, President, Weiss Research Inc. Palm Beach Gardens, FL

 

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“….we needed a savvy researcher to take over and wrap the project up.…With the persistence and passion for accuracy of a crack reporter, she tracked down final figures, located the dates of lost articles, drafted stray footnotes, and verified quotations.” -John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, Authors of Re-inventing the Corporation Washington, D. C.

 

 

"The blogs getting out the information were terrific!"
-Eileen V. Robinson, Corporate & Continuing Education, Palm Beach State College

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“Congratulations on your success at the 2010 Bernays Awards.  It is impressive that your project “Ruth Rales Jewish Family Service / Froogle PR” received the award for Best Online PR Campaign. What an accomplishment!” -Sharon Bock, Clerk & Comptroller of Palm Beach County

 

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"...Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule...We did secure our domain and are working on our Facebook page. Again, many thanks for your helpful suggestions." -Gerda Klein, Co-founder, Boynton Beach Mental Health Initiative

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For more information on SEO accomplishments, please see Awards.

“I wanted to tell you what a good job I thought you did putting together the Annual Meeting.  That kind of thing doesn’t happen by accident.”

-Al Komins, President
Alpert Jewish Family & Children’s Service West Palm Beach, FL

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“What a great event you put together!  The CFO was truly honored to be recognized by your members. I also appreciate your help in setting up media interviews.”

-Tami Torres,  Chief Financial Officer
Director of Communications for Tom Gallagher Tallahassee, FL

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“Thank you so much for all of your efforts in organizing the Advocate’s Luncheon. It was an honor to be recognized…You did a great job!”

-Lois J. Frankel, Florida House of Representatives, District 85
West Palm Beach and Tallahassee, FL

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“You are the best, I can’t believe you managed to squeeze me and Merrill Lynch [as $5,000 sponsors] on the invitations. I really appreciate your efforts. P. S. Can you send me 15 invites to the event…”

-Jodi Zinn, Financial Advisor
Merrill Lynch Palm Beach Gardens, FL

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“The groundbreaking event held earlier this week is an evident sign of just how far this agency has come in a very short time. I would like to commend … the efforts of Sharon Geltner in the coordination of this event as well as the many other duties in which our agency benefits from her experience and expertise. It is a very positive sign that the role of ‘PR & Marketing’ is a vital and crucial part of our agency. I am delighted that we have a professional like Sharon Geltner as part of the team at JF&CS.”

-Jonathan D. Rubins, Incoming President
Jewish Family & Children’s Service West Palm Beach, FL

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“The Area Agency on Aging breakfast and presentation was very exciting. Although I was not chosen as a winner, your consideration and thoughtfulness made me a ‘winner.’  People like you make it so pleasant to volunteer my time. You are so sweet and easy to work with. Again—thank you!”

-Harriet Feinstein, Boynton Beach, FL

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“Well, the luncheon turned out to be terrific and no matter what you say you know it’s mainly because of your efforts. [My wife] and I are so appreciative with everything you did to make the afternoon such a special event. You should feel good about what you were able to do and we are very grateful for your effort.”

-Lawrence M. Abramson, Esq., West Palm Beach, FL

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“Thanks. The article [about our end-of-life issues panel] in the Jewish Journal turned out nicely. Thanks for expediting that.”

-Maureen Wise, Director
Ewa & Dan Abraham Project, Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, Florida

“For the June issue of Coaches’ Corner, a national newsletter for writing coaches, we will address the need to write short pieces with flair….As a finalist in the American Society of Newspaper Editors competition for short news writing, [Geltner’s] story would be most helpful, especially since we need light, bright writing." 
-Lucille S. deView, Writing Coach, Orange County (CA) Register

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“Show me, show me. Five winning examples of good, short writing. [Geltner’s] short articles for the News range from humor to pathos.” -The Coaches’ Corner – A Quarterly Exchange on Coaching Writers, American Society of Newspaper Editors

 

 

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For more information on writing accomplishments, including national recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists and American Society of Newspaper Editors, please see Awards.