Baruch College’s Museum of Public Relations is hosting a retrospective in September to honor the life and career of late PR visionary Patrick Jackson.

Referred to as the “counselor’s counsel,” Jackson founded behaviorally-based Exeter (now Rye), New Hampshire PR firm Jackson Jackson & Wagner in 1956, whose approach to advising clients was based on how people behave as individuals as well as within groups.

Patrick Jackson
Patrick Jackson

In 1980 Jackson was named president of the Public Relations Society of America. The same year, he delivered more than 250 speeches to PRSA chapters and PRSSA student chapters around the country.

He founded Dudley Research, a JJ&W research subsidiary, in 1982, and for three decades served as editor of now-defunct industry newsletter PR Reporter. He also co-edited the textbook, “Public Relations Practices: Managerial Case Studies & Problems,” which is still used in classrooms today.

Jackson, who died in 2001, was recipient of PRSA’s Gold Anvil Award in 1986. He also received an Arthur W. Page Award, a PRSA Educators Academy David Ferguson Award and the National School Public Relations Association President’s Award. In 2001 he was posthumously awarded the Institute for Public Relation’s Alexander Hamilton Medal.

The PRSA established the Patrick Jackson Award for Outstanding Service in his honor, and organizations such as the Counselors for Higher Education, the National School Public Relations Association and the Yankee Chapter of PRSA have also since named created awards in his name.

The Museum of Public Relations’ exhibit begins on Thursday, September 8, with a 6 p.m. opening reception and panel discussion covering Jackson’s theories and work, as well as a display of Jackson’s artifacts and papers, to be held at Baruch College’s Vertical Campus. An RSVP is required to attend the reception. RSVPs can be obtained by emailing Stacey Smith at [email protected] by Monday, September 5.

The Jackson exhibit, which is part of an ongoing series hosted by the Museum of Public Relations to honor PR legends, is being sponsored by Jackson Jackson & Wagner, PRSA, the Institute for Public Relations, the National School Public Relations Association and the Public Relations Society of America’s Yankee Chapter. The event runs until September 30.

The Museum of Public Relations was founded in 1997. Since 2014 it has been located at Baruch College’s Newman Library Archives and Special Collections, 151 East 25th Street, New York, NY.