By David A. Brown
Special to BassFan

It started as a way of life. Now PRADCO Outdoor Brands public relations manager Lawrence Taylor has turned his boyhood interests interest into his livelihood.

“I grew up in the country with no other kids around, so I hunted and fished all the time,” said the Alma, Ark. resident. “That’s what I fell in love with and that’s what I feel comfortable with.”

That comfort has translated into a successful run in the outdoors industry, the past 13 years of which he’s spent promoting the many PRADCO products. Demanding, stressful, time-gobbling – all fairly describe the modern PR position. However, Taylor’s quick to note that the scale tips clearly to the positive.

"My position with PRADCO Fishing can be overwhelming at times, with 16 different companies (including Rebel, Booyah, Lindy, Bomber and YUM) to promote, but it's extremely rewarding and the fishing perks are pretty good,” he said. “In addition to playing the editor role with our brand websites, I work with writers to ensure positive publicity for our products. This allows me to travel and fish some of the best waters in the country, from bass fishing Guntersville or Kentucky Lake to trout fishing the White River and others.

"It's never dull. On any given day I might be writing text for packaging, creating print advertising, working with pro anglers on the water or producing press releases and catalog text."

Journalistic Background

Noting that a long road preceded his current post, Taylor credits his academic background and his first post-college job for the foundation upon which he has built his outdoors industry career. He earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of Oklahoma in 1988 and added a master's degree 5 years later.

In between degrees, Taylor edited Oklahoma’s Broken Arrow Ledger. Complementing the book smarts with real-world mass communication experience amid the demands of daily newspaper production equipped him with tools and mindsets critical to the outdoors industry career he’s enjoyed for over two decades.

“I think that traditional journalism background trains you to be concise; it trains you to structure your writing with the most important things up front and work through the details toward the end,” Taylor explained.

And then there’s the whole deadline thing – pretty much the driving force for all communications scheduling.

“When you have five people in a newsroom and you’re producing a daily newspaper, it gets pretty hairy,” Taylor said. “You have your deadlines and everybody knows their responsibilities.

“I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world, but I also wouldn’t want to go back to a time when I had to sit through a board of education meeting when the Giants were playing the Cowboys on Monday Night Football."

The Big Break

So, how did Taylor break into the fishing industry? Right place, right time, right skills – that’s how.

“I was very fortunate; timing is everything,” he said. “I was just wrapping up my thesis for my master's degree when a friend who I fished with a lot told me that Bassin' and Crappie World were produced in a Bixby, Ok., which is just a neighboring town to Tulsa.

“I stopped in one day, submitted my resume and it just so happened that they were losing an editor the following week. I went in for an interview 3 days later and a couple of days after that I was notified that I got the editor’s position.”

Taylor would guide the editorial development for those magazines from 1992-2002 before moving into his current post. For that transition, he tips his hat to PRADCO's Bruce Stanton, who had a longstanding relationship with Taylor through their industry interactions. When Stanton became general manager of PRADCO Fishing, he tapped Taylor as his predecessor.

Changing Industry

Over the past decade-plus Taylor said he’s had a front-row seat to the rapidly changing stage of digital communications.

“When I first started in magazines, I’d get a story package a foot thick,” he said. “It would have a print out of the story, a floppy disc, slides and maybe some (photo prints).

“Now, we have the ability to put together stories and photos and email them immediately. The advancements in technology have been incredible.”

Taylor said he’s also noticed a significant change in how information is packaged. With the shrinking demand for lengthy me-and-Joe-went-fishing stories, a preference for short, punchy pieces has arisen. Quick reads with tight focus are today’s look – particularly in the most rapidly developing area of Taylor’s job.

“The social media managers are quickly becoming the most important people in a marketing department,” he said. “It used to be about getting a story in a magazine, but now it’s about getting 100 more likes on your Facebook page.

“We’re able to market more directly to the consumer that way.”

Touting his team’s collective efforts, Taylor said he enjoys the opportunity to stretch his creative wings and harness current trends and strategic angles for the benefit of brand promotion.

“It’s wonderful to be able to get creative in print, TV, and Internet ads and to reach outside the fishing industry for inspiration,” he said. “That takes a brain trust. That stuff can’t happen without the help of the whole marketing department.

“The team that I get to work with on a daily basis is amazing. We have a brilliant team of artists and a new social media manager who’s doing an outstanding job. And our management team, I have complete faith in them and I feel very proud of the group of people who make it happen at PRADCO.”

Keeping it Straight

Despite the mistaken notion of daily fishing that pretty much all of us in the outdoors communication business endure, Taylor has definitely wet his line in some of North America’s most coveted waters. One trip in particular led to an epiphany that deeply impacted his perspective.

During a trip to Mexico’s Lake Huites, Taylor caught loads of big bass, including his then personal best – a 10 1/2-pound largemouth. Definitely a cool deal, but that kind of fishing has a way of spoiling you and stealing some of the luster of back-home reality fishing.

However, about a year after his Huites trip, Taylor was fishing a small water-supply lake outside of Tulsa when he caught an 11 1/2-ounder.

“That really brought me back to center and restored my faith and enthusiasm in fishing,” Taylor said.

Making it Count

Thankful for his impressive résumé of angling exploits, Taylor said he’s been ever aware of the often brutal time commitments his career has demanded.

“It’s a lot of fun to go and fish different places with some of the best anglers in the world, but my four kids have had to deal with me being gone a lot for many years,” he said. “It’s hard, because we talk a lot about getting more kids out fishing, but having to be away from my kids has been tough.

“It has to start at home and I’ve felt terrible that I’ve had to leave my family so many times. But the job requires that.”

Time away from home is still part of the job he loves, but Taylor makes family time top priority when he’s not on the road. That could be a simple fishing or hunting trip, dinners with the whole crew or something to which he gladly commits several nights, weekends and a whole lot of character building.

“In past 3 to 4 years, I’ve devoted all my free time to coaching youth baseball and football for my sons’ teams,” Taylor beams. “It is the most fulfilling thing I get to do.

“I love all those kids – not just my boys – and all the activities that go into building the team. Hopefully, I can give these kids something to look back on someday and say ‘That was a lot of fun.’”