Christine Power Bain

Christine Power Bain (‘76) believes that preparing students for careers in mass communications includes taking care of business – literally. She makes that observation from a pretty good vantage point. She is vice president of communications and events for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

A former newspaper promotions editor, Power Bain said she has learned not only the importance of writing skills but the importance of having business savvy. She suggests that journalism schools incorporate some business requirements and classes into their programs.

“No matter what job you have, you should learn about business,” she said. “You need to really understand the whole company, like what its goals are. It will make you much more successful.”

At the chamber, Power Bain works with the organization’s publications, Web site and public relations and marketing departments to promote Denver. She supervises five in her department.

“Our vision is business leadership dedicated to economic vitality and quality of life,” she said. “The big role is to create jobs. My role is how we use communication to do that.”

One of her biggest challenges when she started three and a half years ago was to get her colleagues to improve e-mail communications within the membership.

“There was an evolution of taking technology to this level,” she said. “We had to compete. We had a limited budget, and we had to find ways to be more efficient with our resources.” Power Bain said that email is now used on a daily basis by most of the organization.

In reminiscing about her journalism courses at the School, Power Bain marveled at how far and fast information technology has evolved.

“I took reporting, and we sat at old typewriters. I’ve worked through the technological communication evolution,” Power Bain said.

Power Bain graduated with a double major in Advertising and News Editorial, but aside from an internship while she was in school, she has never had a job that was strictly reporting.

From 1983 until 1993, Power Bain worked at the Rocky Mountain News, first as special projects editor and later as the community relations editor. One of her duties was working to put together the comics section.

“I loved working for a newspaper,” she said. “But I loved that I did something a little more creative in the newsroom.”

Though Power Bain has not chosen to work in a reporting field, she said she is very grateful she took the reporting classes.

“News writing is about the best kind of discipline,” she said.

As a college student, Power Bain said, she felt drawn to the excitement of life as a journalist.

“I was inspired to go to journalism school by Woodward and Bernstein and their work on Watergate. I knew to be a legitimate journalist I had to have the discipline of News- Editorial, and I was right,” she said. “I couldn’t have done my job at the Rocky Mountain News without that training.”

Power Bain recalled an important lesson she learned from her days at the School. “For one of my classes at CU, I started a newspaper for women called Her Risin’, “ she said. “It was a great idea, but I had to get people to submit articles, buy ads and figure out how to print it, design it and distribute it. It was a lot of work, and I think we only published four editions, but it really taught me a lot about project management and publishing.”

Her final year of college included an internship at The Register- Guard in Eugene, Ore., after which she became advertising manager for the Colorado Daily. In 1977, she was in ad sales and marketing for The Denver Magazine, which has since ceased publication. After five years, she became ad manager at Westword in Denver, and a year later she started at the Rocky Mountain News.

After leaving the News, she was a contract meeting planner for Intelligent Electronics and worked in public relations for JohnstonWells in Denver.

“Four years of working with Gwin Johnston was like getting a master’s degree in PR,” she said. She joined the chamber as director of communication in 2000 and three years later was promoted to vice president.

Even though her career path has taken many turns, Power Bain stressed the importance of writing.

“So much of marketing is an idea, and you need to be able to write a great headline and snappy copy to get your message across,” she said.

chris.powerbain@den-chamber.org