Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1476179
L eading a local visitors bureau is a demanding and complex job, but for Bennish Brown, President/CEO of Destination Augusta since July of 2018, its essence boils down to accomplishing one goal every day. "On a daily basis, I wake up thinking, 'Have I provided for my team the resources they need to do their jobs?'" says Brown, who heads a staff of 11 full-time and three part- time employees at the Georgia bureau. "I try to stay out of the way while we're working daily towards our mission and our vision for the city of Augusta." Brown entered the destination marketing field in 2000, when he took the job of Executive Director of the Rock Hill/York County Convention and Visitors Bureau in South Carolina. He spent 12 years in Rock Hill, followed by six years as President and CEO of Travel Tacoma + Pierce County before returning to the Southeast to join Destination Augusta and live closer to his mother in South Carolina. Brown earned a bachelor's degree in broadcasting and a mas- ter's degree in mass communication, with an emphasis in public relations, from the University of South Carolina. His first career out of col- lege was in radio — first in sales, then as program director, on-site tal- ent and general manager. After five years in that medium, he spent a year as a newspaper reporter. Brown's next career move was a shift to media and public relations. Over the next decade, he worked in a variety of posts, including Director of Public Affairs for the city of Columbia, South Carolina, Director of Public Relations at Benedict College and member of the media relations team at SCANA (now Dominion Energy), a Fortune 500 company. It was one of his former corporate PR colleagues, Robin Montgomery, who suggested Brown for the job at the Rock Hill visitors bureau when it was undergoing a reorganization. Montgomery, who had also worked with Brown in A CONVERSATION WITH BENNISH BROWN P R E S I D E N T / C E O O F D E S T I N AT I O N A U G U S TA BY SONYA STINSON B M & T ••• July August 2022 ••• www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 33