Alumni Gather to Celebrate Harold Burson's 95th Birthday

odwyerpr.com [includes video]

More than 150 former and current Burson-Marsteller employees gathered at the James Burden Mansion on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to celebrate the 95th birthday of Burson-Marsteller founder and chairman emeritus Harold Burson. Burson Worldwide Chair and Chief Executive Officer Donald Baer presided and spoke of Burson’s contribution to PR and society. Burson, himself, in a video made for the occasion, cited his early belief that the practice of PR could become a big and important global business as perhaps his most significant contribution to the field. Among the Burson-Marsteller alumni feting Burson at the New York gathering were former George W. Bush adviser and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes and former Burson-Marsteller Worldwide President and CEO Chris Komisarjevsky. The video hailed Burson for his pivotal roles in the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol tampering crisis in 1982 and the rebranding of Classic Coke in 1985.  Burson-Marsteller also posted a YouTube tribute to Burson.