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Missy Shorey, Kogod ’99

Gazing out at the Supreme Court through her window at the Hart Senate Office Building, Missy Shorey knew she had arrived. It was her reaction to this realization that was quite curious.

“It was a very clear moment in my life,” she says. “I looked down and I said, ‘It does not get better than this. If I don’t get out of here now, I will be here forever.’”

Always up for a challenge, Shorey decided that her weakness in math made her the perfect fit for business school. Somehow, nearly a decade later, this line of thinking has worked out perfectly.

“It was one of the smarter moves I made in my career,” says Shorey, who now runs her own public relations firm.

Shorey’s father was in the U.S. Coast Guard, so the family moved frequently during her childhood. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, then went to Washington to work for then-U.S. senator Connie Mack. After making that momentous decision to switch career paths, Shorey began the process of evaluating business schools.

“I had been studying for the GMATs, and I came to realize that I really felt a part of Washington, D.C.,” she says. “From a cultural standpoint, I felt very at home.”

A colleague who had lectured at AU recommended the Kogod School of Business, saying its students were “always prepared and engaging.” Shorey dived in and decided public relations would be her game after reading Discovering Your Career in Business.

“It was absolutely amazing,” she says of the book, which was recommended to her by a Kogod counselor. “I learned that I like to influence through language and ideas, and another element said I would like enterprise control. By that they meant, you gotta be running your own company.”

That was still a few years away, but after stints at Ogilvy Public Relations and the U.S. State Department, Shorey got “the bug.” She and her husband, Roy Kime, relocated to upstate New York, and in early 2004, Shorey Public Relations was born.

“I started off with myself, and I would bring in other people to do project work,” she says. “We started off with a handful of clients, and the company grew organically.”

The diet has worked well, as the company has fattened itself from $100,000 in revenue that first year to more than $1 million in 2006. It’s done so with a workforce that varies from seven to 12 employees—all of whom, coincidentally, happen to be women.

“I get jokes about it quite often,” she says. “This is an industry where women do thrive. Many of the skills it takes to succeed are seen as inherently feminine. Verbal creativity, keen attention to detail. [Clients] certainly notice it after a while, but we don’t go around and advertise it. The perceptions they may have of a woman-owned firm, the bad ones they have are not true but the positive ones are.”

Shorey lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she and Kime ride bikes—Serotta road bikes, a client, of course—and spend time with family and friends.

“We really enjoy ourselves,” she says of life both at work and away from it. “As an entrepreneur, you work any 18 hours a day you want to.” —Mike Unger