Earth Day reminds me that its source was nurtured by a future icon of corporate communications.

Marilyn Laurie had never before put on a news conference. She had no way of knowing what this one would turn into. The young mother of two children, tired of sitting out the activism of the Sixties, Laurie simply knew that this cause — environmental cleanup — was right for her, and she knew enough about special events from her brief previous experience with advertising copy writing, that you needed to generate media with a news conference. She could not have imagined that on the day of the event, she would be on a platform facing a sea of people — estimated at a quarter of a million crowded into Union Square — standing between Paul Newman and New York Mayor John Lindsay, responding to dozens of reporters, from all the papers, TV and radio, Time and Life magazines. The date was April 22, 1970. Marilyn Laurie had helped New York City launch its first Earth Day. She could not have dreamed that the event she volunteered to publicize would make her the co-founder of an enduring international institution, and would put her on a personal career path as a corporate communications leader.

Birth of Earth Day

In Washington, D.C., a year earlier, the idea of Earth Day had been conceived by a political patron in much the same way that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had envisioned the first Independence Day — a broad, public display of commitment to a central, unifying idea. For the founding fathers, the idea was freedom from foreign rule. For U. S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, Democrat of Washington State, it was about the environment.

Nelson in 1969 had announced that Earth Day, beginning in 1970, would be a grassroots demonstration of public concern. It would condemn waste and pollution. Revering Rachel Carson's plea in Silent Spring seven years earlier, the observance would swell the common cause to save nature from human harm. With Nelson's congressional clout and with a prominent green activist, Denis Hayes, as the coordinator, Earth Day would thrust environment to a forward position in the national political and social agenda.

In a book of personal memoirs about the Sixties¹, Laurie told the authors that her decision to get involved came on a Saturday morning in late 1969 while scanning the Village Voice. "The (environmental) movement was just exploding around us," Laurie recalls of her experience. "I just came in off the wall. I was looking for something to help with, and I found a cause. Or the cause found me."

Her husband Bob had brought the Voice home to show her the ad he had placed for his commercial art studio. She looked at his ad — and something else caught her eye. It was a small classified item about a public meeting to plan something called "Earth Day." Her thought was that here was something new that interested her — and that it was time for her to get out of the house and see if she could get involved. "I said to my husband, 'Look, this meeting is this afternoon. I'm going to go. Stay with the kids. I'm going to go.'"

Laurie learned a lesson about political activism. Fervor requires discipline. At least 400 people showed up for the advertised launch gathering. There was little order in the meeting and nothing accomplished except agreement to meet again the following week, which drew half the crowd as the first meeting. "Again, there was no plan, no real action," said Laurie, but the meetings continued. Finally, a handful — Laurie remembers only about five people — took over, volunteering to take on specific assignments, and staying with it until the job was done. Laurie agreed to handle the public relations. Her idea of a news conference was to invite every possible celebrity from show business, music and politics, in the hope some would say yes and the media would come to cover them. She was amazed when so many great people signed on, pledging to appear, to speak, to sing or make music. "Mayor Lindsay...recognized that this was a better thing to be in front of than to be either behind or against," said Laurie, "and he responded accordingly." Singers and actors — Pete Seeger, Paul Newman — showed up. To Laurie, it seemed that "everybody that we asked came"!

Volunteer Activist to Dedicated Executive

Laurie came to understand that, in her words, "leadership goes to those who are willing to go the distance" — and the former stay-at-home mom was about to enter a long professional journey. As a result of the success, which subsequently included working with the Mayor's Council on the Environment to encourage recycling, and creating a New York Times special supplement for Earth Day's first anniversary, Laurie was asked to head an environmental program at AT&T. Her involvement as a volunteer in what would become the nation's most active sociopolitical issue had put Laurie on a distinguished corporate career path. She would go on to discharge broad responsibilities as the first female senior vice president of AT&T, heading a 500-person global communications operation, subsequently becoming AT&T's Executive Vice President for Brand Strategy and Public Relations, chairman of the AT&T Grants Foundation, and a member of AT&T's 10-person Executive Committee.

Recognized today as one of New York's "75 Most Influential Women," Laurie heads a consulting firm on corporate public relations strategies including social responsibility.