The vast majority of Commission staff serve the American public each day "behind the scenes." Sharon Hurd, a Media Relations Specialist in the Commission's Office of Media Relations (OMR), is one such staffer. If you subscribe to the FCC "Daily Digest", or are interested in information about Commission actions, the chances are pretty good that Sharon may have been involved in helping to get this information to you on a timely basis. And last spring, you could even have met her personally when she traveled around the country as part of the FCC team meeting with consumers to help with the transition to digital television.
OMR is the arm of the agency responsible for overseeing the release of official FCC actions and decisions. Ask any agency staff member who they turn to in OMR when they need assistance in getting items released and you can be sure Sharon's name will be high on that list. These items include a wide variety of documents from high profile policy decisions and Chairman and Commissioner speeches to routine license renewal notices. But Sharon – and the entire OMR team – know that there are a lot of consumers and interested parties who are waiting to learn about these decisions, and they work hard to help get this information out expeditiously.
Do you subscribe to the FCC's Daily Digest? If not, you should check it out. The Digest provides over 10,000 subscribers across the world with a brief daily synopsis (with hyper links) of all Commission orders, news releases, speeches, public notices, press releases and other FCC documents released each business day. Sharon is one of OMR's editors of this widely used summary and document source, and she works to finalize it each day in a timely manner.
Last year Sharon volunteered to be a DTV outreach coordinator and traveled to states such as Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to help educate America's consumers about the digital television transition. A February 2009 article in Wheeling, West Virginia's Intelligencer newspaper highlighted Sharon and fellow Commission employee Sandy Haase's DTV efforts.
This summer she'll serve the public yet again by doing outreach in another vital way -- locating households and conducting brief interviews as a census taker for the 2010 Census. Sharon worked on the year 2000 census so she knows what to expect. "Census volunteers play an important role in making sure everyone in this country is counted," Sharon said. "I really do find it rewarding to explain to the people that everyone's voice counts and they need to complete their census forms."
Sharon joined the agency in 1982 and worked in the Labor Relations Office and Complaint and Inquiries Branch before joining the Office of Media Relations. Sharon is a resident of Waldorf, Maryland and has a son.
She said, "I enjoy my job. I feel like I am doing my part by helping consumers, businesses and even other governments agencies get the communications information they need in a quick and efficient way."
Serving consumers is what the FCC is all about, and we couldn't do it without the dedication, commitment and hard work of consumer specialists like Sharon Hurd.