Rick Derrico
“Communication works for those who work at it.” – John Powell
- Role
- Director of Public Relations at Transfinder
- Location
- Schenectady, NY, US
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Rick Derrico
For more than 25 years, I had been a journalist. I\'ve been blessed by Mother Teresa, gave a bounce pass to Celtic great Larry Bird. I\'ve been in the same room as Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro (to name but a few) when I covered the UN\'s 50th anniversary. I covered crime and politics (sometimes one and the same), business, sports, education, breaking news (murders, fires, you know the drill). I\'ve worked at dailies and weeklies, broadsheets and tabloids, afternoon and morning papers. I\'ve worked for giant chains, Conde Nast, Gannett, Dow Jones & Co; and family owned papers.Then something happened. It\'s an occupational hazard in journalism that sometimes reporters become what they cover. Education reporters become teachers, Legal reporters go to law school to become lawyers. Crime reporters. well, let\'s hope it doesn\'t go that far. But covering entrepreneurs the way I did for more than a dozen years led to my getting the itch to no longer be on the sidelines recording history but wanting instead to get in the game. In 2013, I got in the game, working for a PR agency. Not long after, I started my own boutique PR agency, working closely with senior executives. Today I am both the public relations director at a $35 million tech company and the managing director of the New York BizLab, a business accelerator that is joining in Schenectady\'s transformation efforts by helping the most promising companies grow fast and grow smart.
Experience
Director of Public Relations
Jan 2014 — Present · Schenectady, NY, US
Working with an exceptional team at Transfinder to enhance the company\'s visibility globally, nationally and locally. Transfinder is the leader in school bus transportation logistics, creating and delivering award-winning routing solutions, parent and driver apps as well as fleet management solutions. One in three schoolchildren in North America take buses each day routed using Transfinder technology.When I joined Transfinder, the company recored $7 million in revenue. That has increased fivefold in the past decade, with 25 straight years of growth.
Education
Shaw Academy
Diploma , Social Media Marketing
2019
Empire State University
Master's, Public Policy
Mid-America Global Northeast
Master's level coursework
2019
University of Maryland
Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship
2016
Harvard University
The crises of our time generate enormous adaptive challenges for our families, organizations, communities and societies. The need for leadership that can mobilize people to meet these challenges and improve life is critical. In this course, we are exploring strategies for leading in a changing world where adaptive pressures will continue to challenge us all. In this course, I'm discovering new ways to approach complex organizational systems.
2020 — 2020
Hillsdale College
Certificate of Completion
2015 — 2018
The Wharton School
Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services
2016 — 2019
Northeastern University
Bachelor of Science, Journalism
1986 — 1991
National University of Singapore
Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication
2017 — 2017
Clayton A Bouton High School
Diploma
1984 — 1986
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