Women We Love: Marijean Jaggers

Marijean Jaggers, who has lived in Albemarle County since late 2005, is one of the most well-known professional women in our town. I’ve known her since she moved here, but didn’t meet her face-to-face until 2009. I remember telling someone that and he responded: “How have you not met Marijean yet?” It cracked me up, but now I see he was totally right.

Marijean, vice president at Standing Partnership, is somehow everywhere. She an esteemed member of the Social Media Club of Charlottesville, writes two personal blogs (STL Working Mom and Marijean Jaggers), and can be spotted on Twitter (@marijean) nearly every day of the week. She has also been a presenter at Quadruplicity (@Quadruplicity). This woman, who is married with a son and daughter, is a dynamo!

Marijean credits Mary Troy, with the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, as her inspiration to enter into public relations. It was Troy who gave her the best advice, she adds: “Write every day.” She loves that every work day is different. “That’s one of the great parts of agency life—there is no typical,” she says. “I could be attending a conference as a speaker or writing content for a client or to benefit our firm; my day could include solving a client’s PR crisis or proactively developing a strategy to best position their best qualities. Each day is different, but they’re all full of activity.”

Finding balance isn’t easy, but she does have a strategy for trying to achieve it. She believes it is important to define her priorities and schedules what’s important. She also makes sure she keeps promises she’s made to herself. Taking care of herself mentally, and physically, is important, too. She uses her Wii Fit and just started running, “and that is both a physical and mental workout.” And she’s “pretty serious about getting enough sleep.”

A challenge she faces in business these days is “turning down clients that I’d love to support, but who don’t have the resources to engage with us.” And while work is … well work, she does feel rewarded by it. She enjoys “helping change take place and working toward a goal that is achieved through communication.”
For other women considering a career in Public Relations, Marijean offers this advice: “Read a lot, online and off, and write as much as possible.”

8 Things You Might Not Know About Marijean Jaggers…

1. Who is your favorite author and why? William Faulkner; his work stands out more than any other author, scenes and phrases present in my memory for decades after I’ve read them.

2. Favorite thing about Charlottesville? All the chain restaurants! (I am kidding). Coming from the flattened Midwest, I love the topography and being surrounded by mountains.

3. What is your favorite hobby/pastime? Reading.

4. What is one of your hidden talents/skills? I bake a mean pie. Maybe that’s not so hidden, but it’s true.

5. What is your guilty pleasure? Chick flicks.

6. What is your favorite movie and why? The Princess Bride because it’s still hilarious and quotable even after all these years (inconceivable!)

7. Where did you grow up? Springfield, Ill. ... the land of Lincoln, so the transition to the land of Jefferson was not as difficult as one might think.

8. What is the greatest invention of your lifetime and why? The Internet.