Denise P. Meridith is the CEO/President of Denise Meridith Consultants Inc. (DMCI), a community and public relations firm. This NYC native served 29 years in the Federal government. After being the first professional woman hired by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), she had management positions in six states, and became the first woman BLM Deputy Director in Washington, DC in 1992. She retired early from BLM after serving seven years as the Arizona State Director, where she managed 14 million acres of public lands, eight offices and over 700 employees.

Meridith has devoted the past  23 years to community work (including having established the Greater Phoenix Black Chamber of Commerce and the Arizona Tourism Alliance). She has a life-long commitment to community viability and economic development, particularly in the recreation, hospitality and tourism industries. Her 18-year-old firm provides lobbying at local and Federal level; partnership development; technical writing; conflict and crisis management; and human, cultural and natural resources development. DMCI enhances organizations’ relationships with the clients, customers, employees, government and the media.

Meridith taught young executives leadership, business, and communication for Cornell University online for ten years. She is currently teaching tourism, recreation and sports marketing to undergraduates at Arizona State University.

Meridith is a well-known public figure in Arizona, who has received many awards from local governments, business organizations and non-profit groups.  Her government career was chronicled in the autobiography—Thoughts While Chillin’.  Her new follow-up book The Year a Roof Rat Ate My Dishwasher: An Arizona Survival Guide for Entrepreneurs provides guidance to businesspeople, who are living in or thinking of relocating to Arizona, and is  based on lessons from her private and non-profit experiences from 2000-2018.

Meridith is a popular speaker and can be reached at denisemeridithconsultants@cox.net about being a keynote speaker or panel member at your future conferences. Readers can sign up to receive her free blog—Thoughts While Chillin’—which has been providing weekly leadership tips for over ten years at: 

https://tinyurl.com/mlvykvh