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Creative Communication"This is an interesting business to be in," says Harold "Bud" Garrity ’68, "because there’s a lot of variety, and we work with a lot of different people. And it’s always calling for creativity." Garrity is the founder and president of the Ithaca-based advertising firm Garrity Communications. Specializing in marketing and brand strategies and tactics, the company offers audio and video production, print and Web design, public relations, and media planning to a clientele that includes Heluva Good Cheese and the Tompkins County Trust Company, among many others. Indeed, a recent Garrity marketing campaign was credited for a boon in passenger bookings of airline flights from Tompkins County Airport, which had been in decline until the campaign turned things around. "Combining strategies and creativity," grins Garrity, "is a great way to make a living."
It bills itself as
a company that wants to build strategic and creative partnerships with
its clients. The company seems to share much of its personality with its
founder and president. Garrity is charming and seems genuinely interested
in those he talks to — an important trait for someone who must understand
his clients, their customers, and their competition quickly. Involved
in radio — "still my first love" — since Garrity has remained strongly connected to IC. He currently serves on the Ithaca College Board of Trustees and Marketing Committee. He has sat on the board of directors of the alumni association, and he has assisted with Career Night, phonathons, and volunteer workshops. "It’s nice to try to give something back to the institution," says Garrity, "because the institution did a whole lot for me." — Katy Heine with M.S. Photos by George Sapio
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That
he does so successfully is evidenced by the company’s many awards and
accolades, as well as its recent growth. In the reception area of its
well-appointed building on Aurora Street are an impressive number of Tellies
and other advertising and marketing trophies. Begun as a one-person audio
production operation in 1978, Garrity Communications now boasts a staff
of 14 and a recently opened second office in Syracuse. The firm ranks
sixth in size among agencies in central New York.
junior
high school, Garrity came to IC from a small town in Glens Falls, knowing
that he wanted to be involved in "the media business." He majored in television-radio
and worked at WICB, developing some of the skills on which he now relies.
After graduation Garrity decided to stay in Ithaca. "Coming as I did from
a very small town, I thought Ithaca was pretty ‘happening,’ " he says.
"The town is so appealing. And I love the lake." (He and his wife, Janet,
live on the lake and have a power boat.) He first worked as news director
at WHCU-FM in Ithaca, and from 1975 to 1978 he worked at Ithaca College,
serving as its first full-time director of annual giving.