About The Buzz Factory PR

Gail Kent:

Will write (promote or market) for food!

Becoming a famous author is Gail Kent's ultimate goal. Until she makes the New York Times Bestseller List, she's exercising her writing and public relations skills by helping her clients reach their goals.

Winner of more than 300 local, state, regional and national awards for communications excellence, Gail is accredited as a PR practitioner by the International Association of Business Communicators. (It's a really, really hard test.)

With 30 years of experience, Gail has run the gauntlet of communications practice. She started out life as a journalist, then morphed into a public relations and marketing practitioner. She spent 12-plus years working for hospitals, five promoting higher ed, five as owner and president of a small ad agency and two in advertising sales (…and a partridge in a pear tree!). As a freelancer and agency owner, she's worked with every kind of enterprise -- B2B, B2C, professional services, associations, government agencies and non-profits.

She's an alum of the School of Journalism at UNC-CH (go Tar Heels!). And she's also serious about this writing thing. During her first mid-life crisis, she enrolled in Old Dominion University's MFA Program in Creative Writing.

While she can wear a suit and heels with the best of them, Gail's been known to dress in silly costumes to raise money for The United Way and The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. She has donned scrubs and a hairnet to observe a surgical procedure so that she could write a better story. And she once climbed a water tower in a skirt to take photos of a tract of land for a real estate company.

Gail has enjoyed all (OK, most) of her workplace adventures. Now she's decided that working for herself is the best way to pander to her penchant for taking on fresh, new challenges. It also gives her the flexibility to finish her thesis. And get her nails done.

   Sherril Schmitz: Art is her heart

If Sherril had a rich husband, you'd find her making surrealistic paintings all day.

She likes painting canvases that make people think about why there are here. About God and our higher purpose on Earth. About how each of our souls is connected to everyone.

How fortunate for you that she isn't rich! This means she engages that creative energy toward producing compelling graphics that interpret and communicate your organization's messages visually.

Sherril thinks in pictures. She has an uncanny and intuitive knack for decoding written and spoken words to produce designs that, if her clients had her talent, they would do for themselves. She gets it.

She attended St. Ambrose University as an art major and graduated from Ray Vogue Art School in Chicago with a degree in graphic design. Since then she has worked in both agency and corporate settings producing creative and effective marketing materials, including logo designs, brochures, magazines, books, ads and signage.

Through her firm, Dé jà  vu Design Inc., she works for a variety of industries, including healthcare, higher ed, municipal government, non-profits, religious communities and printers. Once she gets a client, they come back again and again.

Gail discovered Sherril's talents nearly 20 years ago, and they have been working together ever since. Sherril collaborates with The Buzz Factory so that we can offer a turnkey approach to producing all your public relations and marketing materials.

Someday Sherril is going to build a grotto with a peaceful garden where people can go to sit and be with God. Until then, her divine designs will have a more worldly utility.

Bruce Ebert: Publicity Guy

 Bruce Ebert, public relations consultant, was a reporter for newspapers in Memphis; Huntington, W. Va.; and Newport News, Va.; and an editor for the newspaper in Manassas, Va. 

Over a period of more than 20 years he covered numerous “beats,” including business, politics and government, human-interest features and education. 

As a public relations practitioner, he has worked for for-profit and non-profit clients in a variety of fields. He also has contributed stories for regional lifestyle, arts and medical-interest magazines.

Bruce is an expert at getting to the heart of a story, developing dead-on pitches and selling them to the media. He has placed stories in national and regional newspapers and magazines, and on blogs and TV stations across the country.

Nobody has more media contacts than Bruce, and he knows how to work them.

He can frequently be found in his outdoor office at Starbucks on Colley Avenue, enjoying a latte while using the free wireless service.

The Buzz Factory is a Hampton Roads, Virginia, boutique PR and marketing firm that helps small business owners make a living while living their American dream. We use traditional and online PR and marketing strategies and tactics to help make our clients' businesses more profitable.