Laura Rumpler: 'Architect for positive change'

Laura Rumpler knows words matter.

Rumpler, the communications director for the Coeur d’Alene School District since 2010, learned that lesson at an early age.

Growing up in rural Oregon, Rumpler came from a small, tight-knit family. Her father, a retired naval commander, and her mother were loving and supportive.

“We traveled often, with my father’s career and my mother being from Scotland. I’ve had an interesting background of experiences and people in different cultures,” Rumpler said. “There wasn’t much fear in my life when I was young.”

Then, when she was around 9 years old, her music teacher pulled her aside and told her she had a horrible voice, that she was singing too loud and ruining the upcoming school performance. The teacher told Rumpler not to sing, to just mouth the words.

That had a profound effect on Rumpler. She never voiced her singing again, not at church or school functions. She mouthed the words.

Years later, when Rumpler was in her early 20s, she was participating in an intense leadership development program, and was asked to share about her greatest fear, and how she would overcome it.

“So I stood up in front of a group of almost 50 people and told my story about my fear of singing,” Rumpler said. “Then I belted out the national anthem, and my voice cracked. I probably sang it the worst it’s ever been sung, but I got through the entire song, and it was the first time I’d ever sung out loud since I was a child.”

The entire room applauded for Rumpler. She conquered that fear, and now she sings out loud when given the opportunity.

“I can’t carry a tune, and that’s OK,” she said.

Rumpler can’t recall the name of the teacher whose words affected her so deeply, but she can remember the names of two other teachers who later helped her turn it around. One of them convinced her to try out for a role in a play in middle school, which she did, and loved the experience on stage.

The other teacher, an Advanced Placement English instructor in high school, told Rumpler she had a great voice in regard to perspective. The teacher, who was also Rumpler’s speech instructor, told her she had an interesting view of the world and a unique way of sharing her words.

“He worked with me and I ended up being the state winner in Oregon of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Voice of Democracy speech contest,” Rumpler said.

Rumpler earned the opportunity to represent the state of Oregon at a circle of leaders conference in Nevada.

“At a gala event on the Hoover Dam I met Kevin Costner, Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand and other famous people. I was 16 years old,” Rumpler said. “There were 50 students from across the country and most vied for autographs from Hollywood celebrities. I chose instead to sit down with General Norman Schwarzkopf and for an hour we talked about his personal experiences and what it meant to be a leader.”

Through college and early in her career, she realized there are many levels to communication. It’s about more than writing or speaking well.

Rumpler said she chose to become a communications professional in order to help people and organizations achieve optimum success by harnessing the power of communication so they are able to make the best decisions.

After college, Rumpler served for six years as Spokane County’s Community Relations and Communications director. She was then recruited by the city of Bend, in her home state of Oregon, to lead that city’s communication efforts and helped the city embrace public involvement during a time of explosive population growth and challenges with water issues, transportation and neighborhood associations.

She said she strives to always be “an architect for positive change in the organization I work for and the community I live in.

“I feel blessed to have a job where I feel I’m able to do that here in Coeur d’Alene.”

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We talk about “communications” as a career field, a profession. How do you explain what it means to be a communications professional?

It sounds so simple, but it can be extremely complex if you take communications to a leadership role, and that’s what I’ve done. It’s about understanding people, figuring out what makes them tick, and what their needs are. Then, listening. I truly believe, especially in public service that the art of conversation — not only sharing information, but listening and participating and having a dialogue with people — is extremely important. And then it’s connecting the people with the right information or resources they might need to contribute or do the most meaningful work within an organization. Then ultimately it’s about caring about how well we have communicated an issue in an emergency situation when it’s reactionary or giving people access and the tools to help them navigate their child’s public education.

Information is a powerful commodity and a lack of information or withholding information leads to misunderstanding and mistrust, especially in public entities. In the role of communication professionals working in the public sector, we absolutely need to be visible, approachable and communicate clearly with all our stakeholders.

I’m the proud product of a public school system and I believe in our public school system, and all our stakeholders, which for us, means students, families, our staff, our teachers, our bus drivers, everyone who works for the district as well as all the taxpayers and the community who support our public schools, and then the community at large, and our business partners. It’s very powerful, the number of people we touch, and it comes back to the concept of a strong community. One of the pillars of an extremely strong community is a strong, vibrant public school system.

When I say communications from a leadership role, I’m a strategic adviser. That’s one of the largest roles that I play. I’m always looking at every situation. I’m mindful of how people are interpreting or perceiving information.

Communications professionals are often referred to as “spin doctors.” How do you respond to that?

An extremely good face of the district or voice of the district is not a talking head. I do research. I do analysis. I connect reporters and the community, all our stakeholders, with people in our organization who are the subject matter experts. So my job is to respond quickly and effectively to opportunities and evolving needs to connect people with the right resources and information at the right time, so they can make the right decisions. And that is not spin-doctoring.

Did you always want to go into this field?

No. In high school, I loved science. I still do. I originally wanted to be a physical therapist. I wanted to have a profession or life’s work in helping people. In physical therapy, it was helping them along the road to recovery, to get their quality of life back after a traumatic experience.

When I looked at the required courses, and thought about my natural affinity for speech and debate, I changed. Instead, I went into studying the science of people, and the way people can express themselves through communication.

You have a history of working in public service, so it must appeal to you. Where does that come from?

I have this belief system and it came from growing up in a retired naval commander’s household, that each person has a responsibility and a right to contribute to the good of the whole society and the common good.

My dad was my rock, my true north. He taught me a lot about leadership, chain of command and how to serve others.

I had my sights set on going into the Navy. I wanted to serve my country, but it was not my destiny. Unfortunately, due to a medical condition with my knee, I didn’t pass the physical qualifications. So I found other ways to be in service to our community and I believe, our country.

I worked for Congressman George Nethercutt when I was in college. I’ve worked for a municipality. I’ve worked for county government...and now, a public school system.

That’s why I’ve been a Rotarian for so many years. The mantra, service above self, in Rotary, just speaks to me.

It sounds like everything you do is important, but is there a particular area you feel most passionate about?

Crisis communications and emergency response. In a true crisis, when a school’s in lockdown, or if there is a crisis of confidence across the organization, people will turn to the person they trust first, and the organization second. So I strive every day to be that person.

When I communicate to families, I get so many people emailing me back or connecting with me afterward, saying ‘Thank you, I was stressed, and I knew if I heard from you, I knew everything was going to be OK.’

How do you continue to enrich your knowledge in your field?

I’m constantly seeking ways to strengthen my professional development on a national and local level. That’s very important to me. So I’ve been honored with the opportunity to be an adjunct instructor for FEMA and Homeland Security with the National Emergency Management Institute. I was recruited, and I’m one of a handful of communications professionals with the credentials to do this. I’m teaching and I’m facilitating discussions with — the majority of them are first-responders from all across the country — so I get to glean amazing perspectives from people from other communities and regions. I don’t want to sound cliche, but I learn just as much from the students as I do facilitating. We do scenarios. We put students through multi-day scenarios. We deliberately increase their level of stress and working conditions, and set them up so they can rise to the occasion and realize that in that setting, they can be successful when they go home.

Most of what we do in the advanced public information officer training course for FEMA and Homeland Security is teaching individual PIOs how to work together in a very large-scale community crisis.

We teach them leadership skills, and advanced and enhanced communication skills, when working together. So when they go home, they have a stronger system of support when something big happens.

What I love about this is it’s a true opportunity for mentorship. I’ve been mentored by people who give briefings to the president at the White House, folks who were in the middle of Hurricane Sandy, and who led communication efforts during Katrina. These are seasoned professionals who are nearing retirement, and I have had the absolute pleasure to work with them and learn from them over these last several years. And, I get to bring these different perspectives, understanding of situations and scenarios from other parts of the country and the world back to Coeur d’Alene so that I can continue to strengthen what I can do for this community.

What do you find most rewarding about your career at this point in your life?

My boys are proud of what I do. When I was out of town and someone asked where I was, the boys said, ‘Mommy is working — she helps teach things to firefighters and police officers so they can be better at their jobs. When you see people talking on the news about bad things happening, Mommy helps those people be strong and share what is going on.’