A Conduit Between Lawmakers and the News
After the debate in September between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, CBS News Capitol Hill producer Alan He ’12 waited outside closed doors — of Senate hearings and lunches — to get lawmakers’ reactions to the televised event the night before. As a producer at CBS, He describes his role as the “conduit between lawmakers and our news network.” The political science major remembers Colgate’s 2010 Washington, D.C., Study Group as “a formative experience that launched me to where I am now.” He recalls Howard Fineman ’70 taking the group to MSNBC studios; then-Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin ’68 giving them a tour of the Capitol; and meeting congresspeople like Sherwood Boehlert, who represented central New York at the time. That summer, He interned for his home state of Vermont’s Sen. Patrick Leahy; and in 2011, Emily Bradley ’10 Greenfield, CBS’s then–bureau chief assistant, connected him with an internship at the news organization, covering Capitol Hill. “One thing led to another,” He says. A highlight of his more than 12 years with CBS, so far, was covering the campaign trail in 2016: “It was the greatest show on Earth,” says He. “I got to travel the entire country with five other journalists; [they] become your best friends.” The key to He’s success as a journalist? “Colgate does a great job of fostering emotional and intellectual resilience,” the producer says. “Emotional resilience helped me get through two impeachments, working in person during a pandemic, and January 6. Intellectual resilience and curiosity help me drive stories forward and look for other angles.”
24 hours in the Life of a Climate Reporter
There’s a hurricane on its way to Houston, and Rebekah Ward ’13 isn’t there. For most people, this would be a good thing. For Ward, the climate reporter at the Houston Chronicle, it’s a problem. “I have to be ready if a hurricane is coming down the pike,” she says, “[so I can] run around the city and see what’s happening as everybody else is running inside.”
Ward had been visiting family in Montreal as Hurricane Beryl approached Texas on July 8, 2024. Just as she was about to board her flight back, it was canceled. “I was very concerned that I wouldn’t be able to do that part of my job,” recalls Ward. Immediately, Ward began checking in with sources remotely. In a twist of fate, the Chronicle’s newsroom lost power, so Ward became the point person — making calls and filing from Canada — for stories about where Houstonians could seek refuge.
The following day, Ward was able to fly out. As soon as the wheels hit the runway in Houston, she started interviewing. “The airport was teeming with people [because] it still had power. Most of the city didn’t, so there were people on every surface plugging in their devices or just breathing the cool air,” she remembers. “Then I got a call.”
A government spokesperson was calling to let her know that she’d be receiving another call shortly with an update on the FEMA response. As Ward exited the airport, dragging her suitcase and searching for her car, her ringtone blared. A few seconds of wobbly connection prevented her from hearing the speaker introduce himself, but she had no trouble recognizing his voice.
It was President Joe Biden.
Crunched up in the front seat, phone on speaker mode and recorder running, Ward learned about the forthcoming major disaster declaration. When the call ended, she rushed back into the crowded airport to file the story.
A few hours later, Ward heard back from her incredulous editor. “Is that a mistype? You said that President Biden said,” Ward recalls her asking. “And I was like, ‘I just spoke to President Biden.’”
Looking back, Ward’s favorite part of the story is that, 10 minutes after their conversation, a press person called back to make sure she knew with whom she had been speaking, since she hadn’t addressed him as “Mr. President.”
“You have to be ready for anything,” says Ward, who has been with the Chronicle for almost two years and is also responsible for covering pollution, energy extraction, and environmental inequity. “I did not expect him to call me, but you can’t act surprised. You just have to do your job.”
A Snapshot of Tara Carey ’13 Hartwick, Manager of Sports Partnerships for Snap Inc.
She caters to sports fans and Swifties alike: Hartwick kicked off her career in sports marketing with roles at HBO, FOX Sports, and the NFL. In 2016 she joined the team at Snap Inc., the tech giant behind Snapchat, where she manages and oversees partnerships with sports leagues and organizations, including the NFL, NBA, and Olympic committees, to create short-form, digestible clips that cater to a young, impatient audience. “Die-hard fans are always going to watch the entire game on the big screen, but more casual fans just want the highlights, and they’re mostly consuming that content in the digital space,” she explains. “Sometimes that’s a five-minute Snapchat video that covers all the biggest plays, and sometimes it’s playing up the pop culture side of the game,” she says, adding that “of course, we’ve been covering the Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce romance.”
She’s got sports and Colgate in her blood: Hartwick (who married Charlie Hartwick ’12 in 2023) is the daughter of Trustee Emeritus Chase ’76 and Wendy Carey. Her family, along with brother Steve ’12, made the 2022 gift that is helping fund the University’s new Carey Center athletics facility. Tara has been “passionate about sports” since childhood — and captained the club squash team during her Colgate years.
Three Facts About Elizabeth Oblinger ’10, U.S. Public Policy for TikTok
She got her start as a campaign volunteer. After graduating from Colgate with a degree in international relations, Oblinger moved to her home state of Ohio to campaign for then–Senate hopeful Rob Portman. When Portman was elected, Oblinger relocated to Washington, D.C., to serve on his staff, eventually working on the senator’s tech and telecom policy portfolio. In 2015 she moved into the private sector to do public policy work for Cox Enterprises and, later, spent nearly six years as a government relations manager for eBay — a position she describes as “developing relationships with lawmakers and their staff to advocate on behalf of the company and its customers.”
She’s now looking out for TikTok’s U.S. users and creators. In early 2024, Oblinger took a public policy position at TikTok, where she focuses on U.S. Senate advocacy as TikTok challenges government efforts to ban its use in the U.S. “I’m always looking through the lens of our users and creators,” she says, noting that she regularly hears from creators who have been able to build large followings and grow their businesses on the platform.
Her “For You” page is all over the place. TikTok’s personalized feed serves Oblinger everything from D.C. restaurant recommendations to skincare tips to hiking content.
Ahead of the Game: Jackie Finn ’13, Director of the NFL’s Global Brand and Consumer Marketing
→2 major brand advertising campaigns she manages each year: kickoff and the Super Bowl
→3 main marketing global brand pillars for her team: brand advertising, tune-in consumption, and attendance
→10+ campaigns that she and her team can be working on at the same time. “That could be briefing our creative agency or building integrated and go-to-market plans. That’s something we’re building right now, for example, for our international games.”
→1 Sports Emmy: She and her team won for their “Run With It” 2023 Super Bowl campaign. “Bringing it to life is not just airing the spot in the game itself. It’s working with PR, social, our influencer marketing team, and our players in our clubs — making this a 360-degree integrated campaign to tell this story. To bring that to life — obviously not alone, but our team spearheaded it — was one of the proudest moments of my career.”
→33: Diana Flores Arenas’ number. The Mexican flag football player and ambassador for the NFL was the star of the “Run With It” campaign. “Flag football has become a key priority for the organization,” says Finn, who adds, “participation in the sport is the number one driver for fandom of the NFL overall.” The sport is an accessible way for kids — especially young girls — and women to get involved in football.
→2028: The NFL played a role in flag football being selected as a 2028 Olympic sport, and there’s a momentum in women’s sports right now, Finn asserts. “We got to integrate Billie Jean King into [‘Run With It’], which is incredible because she was, I’d say, the first female athlete to break barriers.” Finn adds, “I truly believe that the spot was a historic moment for the NFL.”
→59: At press time, Finn and her team were working on the Super Bowl 59 commercial for the 2025 event in New Orleans.
→5th season with the NFL. Finn’s previous roles include manager of marketing operations for the Big East Conference, social media and digital content producer for the United States Tennis Association, and manager of partnership marketing and activation for The Drone Racing League.
→8 a.m. “I was a girl who grew up consumed with sports at all levels, from playing to watching. My father used to leave the New York Times sports section on the kitchen table every morning when I was a kid. At Colgate, I’d turn on SportsCenter at 8 a.m.”
→1st and 2nd years at Colgate: covered sports for CUTV
→’77 and ’82: Her dad, Rich, and her uncle, Gregg, respectively, were on the Colgate tennis team. Jackie was injured her first year but played sophomore through senior year. “Tennis is very much a Finn family hobby.”
Checking in With Christopher Nulty ’09, Airbnb’s Global Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs
“I’ve been [with Airbnb] for more than half of its life cycle. That’s a long time for a business that no one had ever heard of and now is a noun and a verb in [hundreds of] regions around the world.”
“The team I lead thinks about how the world perceives Airbnb, how we tell the story of our company. It’s also a team that deals with some really challenging situations. Every night, there’s the [equivalent of the] population of Los Angeles staying in strangers’ homes around the world. For the most part, that goes really well. But sometimes there are bumps in the road, so part of what I oversee is trust and safety communications.”
“Moments in the world impact us, and we have to immediately think about how to respond, how to navigate. When Hamas attacked Israel, we had to think what to do with our business in Israel: How do we adjust cancellation policies to accommodate unforeseen circumstances? How do we ensure someone doesn’t feel obligated to travel just because they’ve already spent money to book an Airbnb in the region? In the case of Russia, it’s now in violation of U.S. sanctions to transact with Russian banks, so we had to shut down our business there.”
“It’s incumbent upon us, in these moments of crisis, to be good citizens. In the wake of Russia invading Ukraine, we housed almost 100,000 Ukrainian refugees all across parts of Europe. In the wake of the transition government in Afghanistan, we housed almost 100,000 refugees here in the United States.”
“I spent a number of years at SEIU, one of the largest labor unions in the country, [in D.C.] as a spokesperson on a series of different issues, like immigration reform and health care policy. I spent the last year there as a speechwriter for the then-president of the union and started to appreciate what it meant to work for a principal to support a principle.”
“I then led communications for Marissa Mayer, who had just become CEO of Yahoo and was hired to turn the company around. It was probably two of the most interesting years of my life.”
“As a history major, I left Colgate as a much stronger writer, a more thoughtful debater, with a set of skills to make an argument based on truth and fact.”
“I [also rely on my geography major] a lot, using data to explain outcomes. The challenges that face New York City and how it might regulate Airbnb are different from the challenges that face Aspen and the way it might regulate Airbnb. Understanding the context of the people, the community, the government, and the situation goes a long way.”
Nulty was his class president for four years, sang in The Resolutions, and was a member of the Colgate College Democrats. He just finished his second term on the Alumni Council.
Sole Focus: Jake Pulver ’16, global digital marketing lead for Jordan Brand Streetwear, Nike
“I zeroed in on Nike as a top company in my senior year at Colgate. I connected with Sean Cusick ’04, who was with Nike at the time. After sharing my story and passion for the brand, Sean put me on his team’s radar for a temporary contract role, and I eventually landed full time in brand marketing. There, I learned all the ins and outs while creating regional marketing plans for some of Nike’s biggest lifestyle and running launch moments. Though much of my work was behind the scenes, it was gratifying to see the consumer connection firsthand at events like ComplexCon, NBA All-Star Weekend, and the Chicago Marathon.”
“As a brand manager for Nike’s Global Energy marketing team, I worked with visionary design and entertainment leaders to bring our stories to market. I learned so much about operating on the edges of creativity from partners like iconic streetwear brand Stüssy and the late Virgil Abloh, arguably the most prolific and inspirational designer of our generation.”
“In my current role, I orchestrate digital marketing plans to support our Jordan Brand Streetwear business, namely for our Jordan Retros. It’s amazing to work for a brand that has as deep reverence and the platform that Jordan Brand does and to be directly impacting the culture that first drew my intrigue as a kid.”
“My favorite pair of Nike sneakers is the 2005 ‘Tiffany’ Nike SB Dunk Low in collaboration with Diamond Supply Co. The design has always been a standout favorite, with smooth aqua leather, crocodile-embossed black leather, and the chrome swoosh, combining for an eye-catching look. It’s also a reminder
of my early days in sneakers and the genuine nature of
it all.”
Pulver’s twin brother, Dylan ’16, is also in a marketing role at Nike.