About Phillip Yates

Managing communication and public affairs projects in today’s uncertain and complex world can be daunting. As a long-time communication and project management professional, Phillip Yates, APR, PMP, PMI-RMP, PMI-ACP, has learned how to leverage strategic storytelling to simplify complexity, navigate uncertainty and deliver collaborative outcomes for communities.

Phillip has developed successful strategic storytelling and stakeholder engagement campaigns for government and nonprofit conservation organizations for more than 14 years. He currently directs communication strategies for City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks – one of the largest city land conservation programs in the U.S. – helping it to complete hundreds of projects and winning numerous public relations and community relations awards. Phillip also currently manages several ongoing engagement and consultation projects with federally recognized American Indian Tribal Nations. Learn more about Phillip Yates’ professional background through his LinkedIn profile.

Professional Expertise

  • Strategic Communication

    Phillip is an award-winning public relations, community engagement and project management professional and has earned the Accreditation in Public Relations certification. He has helped organizations successfully complete hundreds of projects and achieve their key goals by leveraging key strategic communication, project management and risk analysis techniques.

  • Project & Risk Strategy

    Phillip has earned Project Management Professional (PMP), Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) and Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) certifications. His experience leveraging those certifications for community engagement and public relations efforts can help project managers engage stakeholders and deliver successful public affairs projects.

  • Storytelling & Journalism

    Phillip started his career as a newspaper reporter, covering energy, politics, crime and breaking news in Texas and Colorado. His reporting generated exclusive stories distributed nationwide by the AP, and he was honored with several deadline journalism awards. Phillip’s experience as a reporter has been the foundation for his strategic communication successes.

  • Tribal Engagement

    Phillip helps manage the City of Boulder’s Tribal Nation engagement and consultation program. He has organized four City-Tribal Nation consultations, helped rename a city park with Tribal Representatives’ input and developed a land acknowledgment with guidance from Tribal Nations. Phillip is also working with Tribal Nations to help develop new educational materials.

  • Crisis Communication

    Phillip has provided crisis communication support for many challenging community crises. He led several COVID-19 responsible recreation messaging efforts amid the increase in visitation to public lands in 2021. He also has provided extensive community communication support during the many emergency events, including floods and wildfires, in Boulder, Colorado.

  • Outdoor Recreation

    Phillip Yates has developed outdoor recreation communication strategies for 13 years. While at City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks – which receives more visits than most U.S. National Parks – he has regularly worked with reporters across the country to communicate how the city is managing outdoor recreation amid the increase in visitation to public lands.

  • Natural Resources

    Phillip has in-depth knowledge of effective land conversation messaging strategies from years of experience working for nonprofit and government conservation organizations. He also has extensive knowledge of communication planning best practices learned from developing and implementing successful natural resource communication projects.

  • Corporate Responsibility

    Phillip designed and implemented corporate responsibility media projects that generated extensive media coverage and helped nonprofit organizations to achieve their strategic objectives. Phillip also developed data-driven strategies that helped conservation organizations generate coverage from many media outlets, including the New York Times.

  • Visual Storytelling

    Phillip Yates’ photographic work focuses on portraiture, street photography and travel photography. For the last several years, he has honed his visual storytelling approach by using film cameras, including medium format cameras and a wide range of film stocks. View Phillip’s photographic galleries, including images that capture the special look of analog film.

Professional
Certifications

Phillip Yates has extensive professional experience in navigating uncertainty in public affairs, public policy and strategic communications projects. Recently, he has earned several professional project management, risk management and public relations management certifications.

  • The Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) certification demonstrates professional expertise in developing public relations, public affairs and strategic communication campaigns that achieve organizational objectives. It requires extensive knowledge of reputation risk management risk strategies and experience in public relations research, strategic communications planning, media relations and crisis communications.

  • The Project Management Professional (PMP) certification demonstrates in-depth experience in leveraging agile project management and project risk management best practices to complete complex public relations and public affairs projects. Certification also demonstrates extensive knowledge of effective stakeholder engagement, project communication and risk management techniques, such as risk identification, risk analysis, risk response planning and project risk monitoring.

  • The Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) certification demonstrates in-depth knowledge of anticipating and managing change and implementing risk management and risk assessment best practices. The accreditation requires in-depth experience in identifying problems, assessing project risks, mitigating threats, maximizing results, meeting deadlines and seizing strategic opportunities. Insights gained from this certification can help organizations complete successful public relations, public affairs and community engagement projects.

  • The Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification provides public relations, public affairs and community engagement professionals with critical knowledge to help them complete projects with a high rate of change, complexity and risk. The certification also provides crisis management professionals a framework to navigate crisis communication challenges.

Professional Certificates

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides insights into evaluating brand purposes, identifying target audiences and creating integrated marketing communications. It also provides students with knowledge to identify opportunities that will affect their brand’s market position and guidance on creating brand positioning strategies.

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides students with knowledge of marketing strategy, decision-making tools and market research and analysis. It also provides participants with insights on how to communicate the value of their brands and how to introduce new products.

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides students lessons on leadership models that leaders can use in their day-to-day jobs, along with insights on positional power and the state of the relationship between employees and leaders. The certificate program also provides behaviors that will most effectively influence and motivate public sector employees to perform at a high level and meet the organization's goals.

  • The social impact measurement certificate from Arizona State University helps professionals and organizations understand how social impact measurement fits into their management structures and how to design social impact evaluations.

  • This certificate from the University of Colorado and B:CIVIC – a Colorado-based nonprofit association of professionals – provides practical CSR knowledge and a “toolbox” of social responsibility resources. It also offers students opportunities to hear from local, regional and global CSR experts that will spark ideas and insights and expand their community of peers, helping students to make valuable professional connections.

  • This University of Colorado-Coursera program provides stakeholder engagements professionals insights on how to “engage and approach complex problems, engage effectively with stakeholders and collect and analyze data to solve community transformation changes.”

  • This specialization from Coursera and the University of Pennsylvania is designed to give professionals “the tools and strategies [they] need to create measurable social impact around the world.” It provides students with strategies to “achieve sustainable social impact” and “profits with purpose.”

  • This certificate program from Harvard’s Business School “illustrates how businesses can thrive and grow while simultaneously solving some of the world’s biggest challenges.” It helps students “understand and analyze business models that drive change and how to communicate the competitive advantages of being a purpose-driven leader to management, leadership, and other key stakeholders.”

  • This certificate from Cornell University provides students with knowledge of marketing strategy, decision-making tools and market research and analysis. It also provides participants with insights on how to communicate the value of their brands and how to introduce new products.

  • This course from Velociteach provides project managers with more in-depth information on how to initiate, plan, implement, monitor and close projects. The certificate program focused on the long-term consequences of early decisions and the critical importance stakeholders play in successful projects.

  • This course from the Project Management Institute provided key insights and guidance on implementing change management programs. Coursework included information on change management frameworks and strategies for responding to challenges in implementing change management programs.

  • This certificate program from the Public Relations Society of America equips “management-level communicators with advanced perspectives, best practices and practical, implementation-ready approaches to managing reputation risk.”

  • Velociteach’s certificate program teaches students practices, tools, and techniques for managing project risk. The class also gave students information on the principles and methodologies of risk management and provided risk analysis frameworks that students could use immediately.

  • The Velociteach course provides broad frameworks to help project managers address and navigate project uncertainty. It included information on key risk terms and how to conduct qualitative risk analyses.

  • This course from the Project Management Institute is intended to help organizations adapt (in real-time) amid the challenges associated with COVID-19. The course included information on responding effectively to risks, managing in a crisis and establishing effective virtual teams.

Experience

Project Management at City of Boulder
Project Management at City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks
Strategic Communication at Resource Media
Phillip Was a Newspaper Reporter at the Glenwood Springs Post Independent
Phillip Was a Reporter at the Amarillo Globe-News

Awards

  • Public Relations Society of America, Colorado Chapter – Gold Pick for Community Relations

  • Public Relations Society of America, Colorado Chapter – Silver Pick for Community Relations

  • Public Relations Society of America, Colorado Chapter – Silver Pick for Integrated Communications

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Platinum winner for Communications and Marketing

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Platinum winner for Integrated Marketing

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Gold winner for Communications and Marketing

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Gold winner for E-Newsletters

  • Hermes Creative Awards – Gold winner for Photography, People and Portraits

  • Colorado Press Association – Second place for Deadline Journalism

  • Texas Associated Press Managing Editors – First place for Team Effort

  • Texas Associated Press Managing Editors – Second place for Star Breaking News Report

  • Morris Journalism Excellence Award – Deadline Journalism

  • New Mexico Associated Press – Honorable Mention for Breaking News

  • Amarillo Globe-News – Employee of the Month

  • City of Boulder – Value Award