Last November, Spring Hill College President Dr. Christopher Puto created a new office on campus to help establish a voice for the school and manage its brand identity. Located in the first floor of the Nan Altmayer building, the Office of Marketing and Communications takes various elements of from the Office of Development and the Office of Admissions to help give more clear roles to the staff in each office.

As of now, the office consists of Ashley Rains, Lindsay Mott, and Laura Burton. Together, this dynamic team aims to provide the college with better internal and external communications, as well as establishing a brand for the campus. As a marketing guru, Dr. Puto realized that Spring Hill was majorly lacking in this area prior to establishing the office. Puto is the current CMO of the department until a new one is hired.

Rains formerly worked in the Office of Development, where she served as Assistant Director of Alumni Relations. She is also one of the Public Speaking instructors on campus. Prior to Spring Hill, she was the spokesperson for the Mobile Police Department and as a public affairs officer for Chief of Police James Barber. From that experience, she was qualified to become the Assistant Director of Media Relations. “My main focus is to devise proactive media placement strategies that highlight the mission and work of SHC students, faculty and staff to best support enhance the reputation of the college,” she explained.

In addition to her media placement strategies, Raines’ job also includes acting as a liaison to local, regional and national media for Spring Hill. She also manages content for all of the college’s main social media accounts, write press releases, magazine and web news articles.

The other staff in the office focus on website and creative development. Mott was a 2007 graduate of Spring Hill, and is the former Director of Operations for the Office of Admissions. She now acts as the main Assistant Director of Integrated Marketing Communications for campus, and is currently working on revamping the school website as well as the “Campus Updates” newsletter. Burton is the Director of Visual Content and Brand Identity for the department. She does all things graphic design and layout, and creates the visual content that is published on social media and the school website. Her main task is to create a unifying, consistent brand image for Spring Hill that is easily noticeable to the public.