ABOUT US

Pat Meier-Johnson comes from a broadcasting background, and is an honors graduate from San Francisco State University. After working as a graphic artist and cartoonist for the award-winning "Newsroom" show produced by San Francisco's KQED public television she became Public Affairs Director for KFRC in San Francisco and KLOK Radio in San Jose, California, meeting with grass roots organizations and hosting interview programs with community leaders. After several years at ABC Radio in San Francisco, she combined her promotions experience with her technical background in audio and video and stepped into the world of public relations for clients such as Memorex, where she explained how Ella Fitzgerald's voice recorded on the company's audio cassettes could indeed break a wine glass.  Other clients included the Napa Valley Wine Auction, the first oxygen permeable contact lenses, and early video game companies. In 1984 she established Pat Meier Associates, one of the first woman-owned high tech public relations companies. She has represented public and private companies involved in the underpinnings of today's technology sector including consumer electronics, a major computer chip company, a travel booking engine, computer graphics companies and video streaming technologies. She is known for her ability to communicate complex ideas and technologies with clarity and passion as she represented pioneering companies in the development of CD ROM, DVD and web-based interactive programs. Today, Pat and Russ and their teams deliver an holistic approach to public relations and communications, combining Russ' production, media training and writing abilities with her own PR, social media, promotion and event production expertise and years of ongoing contacts with top media, in both technology and travel.
Pat has been a featured speaker at both technology and tourism events, including conferences of the Pacific Asia Travel Association. Her client base has now extended to world class chip companies, social media companies, mobile apps and devices such as eReaders, tablets, green energy and transportation technologies.  She has been showcasing innovative companies and technologies at her 20+ years-running technology innovator event, Lunch at Piero's during the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas where she hosts 250-plus journalists, bloggers and industry analysts for exclusive product launches and demonstrations. Most recently she and Russ have launched the Connected Traveler Technology Showcase, bringing mobile technology devices, apps and more to the travelers and mobile professionals.

Russ Johnson's media career began at age 16 when he hosted his first solo radio program, a weekly jazz show on Minneapolis radio station. While in college, he became News Director of University of Minnesota Radio then moved to CBS's WCCO-TV, McClatchy Broadcasting in Sacramento and KRON-TV in San Francisco, winning awards for broadcast journalism including an Associated Press Award for his series on California prisons. He left broadcasting to go to graduate school and teach, spending four years on the faculty of San Francisco State University teaching broadcast journalism, writing, mass media and television performance while hosting on the air at KABL Radio in San Francisco. Johnson founded Travelmedia in 1984 and was immediately engaged to produce films for Royal Viking Line and do media training, multi image shows and videos for the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and its annual conferences. More than 25 years later, Johnson is still involved with PATA, serving on its Board of Directors and Sustainable Tourism committees. Travelmedia has taken him to 58 countries and dozens of states and cities for CVBs, national tourism offices, cruise lines, airlines, major credit card companies, trade organizations, universities such as the University of Hawaii, world bodies such as the United Nations and the Asian Development bank and numerous high tech clients. His projects have ranged from sales and marketing videos for cruise lines and computer manufacturers to issues-oriented documentaries on sustainable tourism and future trends, to media training for executives in both the high tech and tourism industries. His pioneering web site, connectedtraveler.com, has served as a proving ground for internet technologies. 

With Pat, he was one of the pioneers of streaming media on the World Wide Web, producing some of the first audio and video webcasts, in cooperation with Real Networks, and podcasts. Clients both in travel and technology benefited from Russ' journalistic interviews and creative ways to depict often complex topics and products.

Russ Johnson's interactive course: "Travel and Tourism: Opening Doors for Your Future" is being delivered in high definition video over the web. He has been a featured speaker at international conference on the subjects of sustainable tourism and travel technology. He is also the inventor of the Worldvibrations Radio Station a full automated radio station (minus transmitter) in a box that is in use at community radio stations around the world.