Find Your Voice on the Opinion Pages: How to Get Commentaries, Letters to the Editor Published
Barbra An Pleadwell, M.A., cofounded Hastings & Pleadwell: A Communication Company in 1996. It is a boutique public relations firm with Honolulu and Hilo offices.
Pleadwell grew up on Guam, the third generation of her family to live in the U.S. Territory. She came to Honolulu for higher education and stayed. She has degrees with Chaminade University of Honolulu and University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Pleadwell’s range of clients: Private businesses, nonprofits and government agencies. Issues management, crisis communication, brand building and online reputation management are among her core competencies. Projects include the Kaneohe to Kailua Sewer Tunnel and the Envision Laie effort.
Pleadwell is a past president of Organization of Women Leaders (OWL), and past board chair of YWCA Oahu. She is active with Junior League of Honolulu (JLH), and helped launch the League’s HerStory conference. She worked with Hawaii Business Magazine to create Wahine Forum, Hawaii’s leading women’s business conference.
Among the first professionals profiled in Hawaii Business’ “Twenty for the Next 20,” she was also in the first group honored by Pacific Business News’ “Forty Under 40.” She and partner Barbara Hastings received the Small Business Administration's Women in Business Champion Award for Hawaii and Region IX in 2007. In 2011, she received OWL's Leader of the Year award.
She is married to Jayson Harper and has two daughters.