Lisa Lapin is the principal and founder of Lapin Strategy and a senior associate with the Peterson Rudgers Group, bringing more than 25 years of experience advising major universities, nonprofits and mission-driven organizations on communications strategy, branding, organizational vision and reputation management. A former chief communications officer at the J. Paul Getty Trust, Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, she has led award-winning efforts in media relations, digital strategy, internal and external communications and institution-wide brand development.
Lapin began her career as an award-winning journalist with the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News and The Sacramento Bee, where her reporting contributed to Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. She has provided media training to more than 1,000 professionals and is a frequent speaker and leader in national communications and advancement organizations.
She serves on the Board of the Naval Postgraduate School Foundation and is active in multiple professional associations. Lapin holds an MLA from Stanford University and a BA in journalism from the University of Southern California.
Whenever I interact with students, they are amazingly impressive. I continue to think students are the best ambassadors for NPS. You talk to them, and you can’t help but want to support them. Speaking with students personally, or reading their stories, always makes me glad I have supported NPS. By far, they are the most impactful community members to me. I’ve never met one that didn’t wow me. Second would be faculty, and I have enjoyed hearing faculty share their expertise at community events. Anything we can do to help bring faculty into the community to showcase academic and research expertise, we should do. I’ve loved the events at Monterey Peninsula Country Club where Todd has interviewed expert faculty members related to hot-button issues and current events.
I thought the Emerging Tech and Innovation Showcase (Now Converge @ NPS, More information below!) I attended last January was amazing. It served so many purposes, from helping students understand what’s possible to helping all of the companies present understand the benefits of a relationship with NPS and see the quality of the students, etc. It seemed to check a lot of boxes for a single event. I think perhaps even more people could have been invited to attend and it could have had even more publicity. But the concept was excellent and worthy of Foundation support. Many audiences served and lots of people engaged in a single event. As you can see, I lean toward things with mass audiences where NPS can show off its intelligence. It would be awesome if the Naval Innovation Center could become a place for large scale convenings.
Waypoint and the student clubs and events are so important because they create community, and those can have long, long-term payoffs for NPS over the years. The more you can do to help students feel part of a community while they are there, the more likely they are to support NPS in the future. That’s the case for all universities. But, I think the large-scale events, where the Foundation can play a role in introducing NPS to more audiences and people and companies, could return the best results in the long run. Anything the Foundation can do to expand the NPS reach, because the campus is so limited in what it can do related to “friend raising.” Awareness and friend raising, which in turn can turn into fundraising, are the most important.
