Mike McDougall was representing large national clients at a New York public relations agency when he and his wife, thinking about starting a family, decided to move to Rochester.
“As soon as we started telling folks, they said, ‘Are you crazy?’ right to my face,” he recalls.
“They said I wouldn’t have any sort of career in public relations, but I figured I could take a bit of a risk. If I didn’t like it or it wasn’t working, we could always pick up and go again.”
Over the next decade, he would pull in national clients for the now-defunct, Pittsford-based advertising agency Buck & Pulleyn Inc., help drive the consumer digital camera boom in global public relations and marketing positions at Eastman Kodak Co., and navigate through recalls, management shifts and other changes as a senior executive at Bausch + Lomb.
With each move, people questioned McDougall’s intentions to stay in Rochester — particularly given that his work has led to new industry benchmarks and international recognition. But in September he made his biggest statement of loyalty yet, becoming managing partner in McDougall Travers Collins, a reputation and communications management firm with offices in Rochester and Buffalo.
Earlier this year, McDougall looked at job openings across the country and even traveled to several states to check out potential opportunities, some of them quite appealing, but in the end chose against relocating because he feels he has already proven he can find success here.
Working for himself is just another attractive challenge.
“I’ve realized that putting a little risk on the table is a good thing,” says the married father of three. “Maybe you won’t have the same cache as you would opening an agency in midtown Manhattan, but you’re balancing what you want in terms of lifestyle, family commitments, and cost of living. I’m a walking, talking commercial for this region.”
Flanigan is a Rochester-area freelance writer.
