Whether it’s operating her own newspaper, running her public relations firm, or successfully winning her husbands mayor campaign, there’s nothing fourth generation Austinite Elizabeth Christian can’t do! She is so full of energy, which is why many of her clients love and put their trust in her such as Waller Creek Conservancy, The Trail Foundation, and Concordia University.
Growing up in Austin, Elizabeth Christian has been writing for as long as she can remember. “Daddy came home one day with two fat blank books that somebody had given him. They were printer’s proofs, so all they had in them were pictures and it was an almanac of Texas kind of thing, but it had no words in it, just blank pages. Susan [her sister] and I each got one of these books and we’d sit and write stories and try to have a little competition of who could write a better story or draw a better picture. Then I was the associate editor of the high school paper at McCallum. I have the newspaper thing in my blood and daddy was a journalist, lobbyist and a government affairs guy. I guess it just ran in the blood a little bit.”
Graduating from the University of Texas with a degree in journalism, Ms. Christian spent five years working in Austin in public relations. She then moved to Los Angeles and worked at the Los Angeles Times for 13 years. She elaborates on her incredible experience explaining, “Working at a major American newspaper before newspapers went to pot was one of the highlights of my life. There was a time when we had 50 news photographers, a thousand journalists on the floor, and then a thousand people in the building with the giant presses running all the time. It was just a wonderful place to work and they were good to us. I was actually an assistant business news editor, so I edited the Sunday news and the business news section. I was there when a world series was on and a big earthquake hit San Francisco and pancaked the freeway. The only people up there were sports photographers and sports writers. So we were covering one of the biggest earthquakes that had hit the state in a decade with a sports crew. The newsroom was just a buzz, it was a fun time.” Ms. Christian also owned a newspaper in Northern California.
When Elizabeth Christian decided to move back to Austin, she ran Bruce Todd’s campaign for mayor, whom she later married. “It was kind of funny actually. I was his campaign manager and he’s the candidate for mayor. I realized, ‘boy, he’s really nice, he likes to go out to dinner every night.’ We would go out to dinner and kind of de brief about the day and thought, ‘this guy is so nice.’ But then at the end of the evening I’d shake his hand, ‘goodnight Mayor, see you tomorrow,’ and say goodbye. Then I realized, I think he thinks we’re dating. In my book we’re wearing name tags for all this stuff, it’s not a date. About four months after I’ve gone to work for him, we realized we really care about each other and got a good laugh out of it. He thought it had been more obvious to me.” They have been married since.
After running her husbands’ successful campaign, Christian realized what she wanted to do. “I was a good journalist, I understand the news business, but I really like the advocacy part of PR. The thing about journalism is you’re kind of waiting for other people to do something. With public relations you’re kind of making that happen. So I got a couple of clients and started in my own little office at home. I started working with a woman who’s still with me today. Pretty soon, we found an office downtown, and now we’re here 20 years later.”
2015 marked the 20th anniversary of Ms. Christian starting her public relations firm, Elizabeth Christian Public Relations. “What’s nice is it’s all women that work here and it’s one of the best experiences of my life because we’re all so close. The cool thing about 20 years is a lot of relationships have happened over those 20 years. For the most part they’ve been remarkable and wonderful.”
Ms. Christian has also led several pro-bono projects. “The most satisfying and important thing we did was when the Johnson family asked us to handle the global media when Mrs. Johnson was dying. When Lady Bird Johnson passed in ’07, we had the whole thing set up. We had written her obituary, had all the national obituary editors organized with the material, and had everything planned. The media just descended on Austin, it was a huge media event with about a four-day celebration of her life. We handled that pro-bono and helped send her out of this world the way she deserved to be sent out. What’s interesting and why they wanted to do it carefully is because they wanted to make sure she didn’t just come across as a ‘wife of,’ they wanted her environmental record. She was a business woman, a major historian, and they wanted to make sure all the aspects of her life came out in her passing. The celebration of life was a really good time to do that.”
On top of balancing a busy career, Elizabeth Christian stays very active in the community. “I am the chair elect of the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. My faith is real important to me and I love being at the seminary, it’s a lot of fun. It’s really beautiful, a little oasis right there by UT campus.” She also serves as a member of the Greater Austin Crime Commission, and The Headliners Club, where she has served on the board many times. “I’m very involved in the Austin Area Research Organization, which is called AARO. Roy Butler was one of the founders of that as well. He’s everywhere! That has been a really important thing for me too.” Ms. Christian is also an advisor for the Junior League of Austin.
With a busy schedule follows stress, but Ms. Christian says it’s less stressful than one would imagine. “It’s harder when you’re younger than when you’re my age. I’m responsible for the whole place, but they’re all doing this great work and are creative and fun for me. I guess that’s also what people pay me to do, is to stay calm in a crisis. So I guess I’ve learned to stay calm, you kind of have to step outside yourself, it’s not emotional, it’s not personal, it’s business, try to stay calm.” She also has many hobbies that keep her relaxed. “I’m a person of many hobbies, but I do them sequentially, I typically don’t do them all at the same time. What I do like to do all the time is read, I read a lot. We don’t watch TV very much at home; we watch the news a little bit, but we mainly read. So at night we put on the fire and read. I’ve always got some books going, but I like to sew, I sew a lot of my own clothes. I like to garden, I like to mess with my house, I love re-modeling projects, I love to travel, and I play tennis. I have a lot of hobbies, I think it’s important to have a lot of hobbies.”
Her mother, Jo Anne Christian, who was a well-known philanthropist and did so many remarkable things for Austin, is having her estate sale this Saturday, February 6th. Mrs. Jo Anne Christian was one of the founders of the Long Center for the performing arts and proceeds from the auction will go towards the Long Center. http://www.austinauction.com/calendar/the-joanne-christian-collection-part-one
Photography by John Pesina
