US Ski and Snowboard Association
Public Relations Director
CLASS OF 1992
“W&J is the little school that can,” says Juliann Fritz-Brigham. “It’s small in student numbers, but big in opportunity, continuously taking steps to make itself a better institution.” Fritz spent her college career challenging herself both in and out of the classroom. She was involved with three sports (field hockey, soccer, and swimming), served as social chair of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and undertook an art major. “I loved the different challenges that each activity presented and the discipline that each taught me,” she recalls. Fritz particularly remembers Dr. Hugh Taylor’s witty sense of humor, Dr. Joe DiSarro’s lively political science classes, and the guidance she received from professor Richard Easton, Dr. Robert Dodge, and Dr. John Mark Scott.
While at W&J, she took advantage of Intersession courses that led her to China and the former Soviet Union, as well as an internship at the Library of Congress. “When we went to the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was in power and the people there were so excited about the new changes,” she says. “That trip and the others made me a better citizen of the world.”
Still intrigued by the wonders of the world, Fritz decided to backpack throughout Europe with a friend after graduating from W&J. She traveled to seven different countries, which gave her the opportunity to visit many of the monuments and famous works she had studied in her art classes. “Everything I saw was, for me, a book being brought to life,” she says.
After an internship at the White House working in the Office of Public Liaisons, Fritz worked for a non-profit government efficiency group in Washington, D.C., and GCI Group, a public relations agency in Atlanta. She then married her love for sports with her experience in communications as public relations director for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. In this role, she has overseen and facilitated national and international media exposure for the athletes, including photo shoots, appearances, and countless interviews. Her favorite parts of the job, however, are helping America’s best athletes tell their stories and “watching them leave their marks in the history books.”
