By Ainsley Walters, Staff Reporter
Deborah Hickling, Commnication Specialist and head of Development Associates - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST Deborah Hickling has been busy refashioning an old family business, Development Associates Limited, into an all-encompassing communications firm.
Started 21 years ago by Deborah's stepmother, Hillary Robertson-Hickling, Development Associates Limited had its birth as a management and communications consultancy.
With 12 years experience in the communications field under her belt, Deborah assumed the day-to-day running of Development Associates a year ago after working as an advisor to Portia Simpson Miller when the Government Minister headed what was then the Ministry of Tourism and Sport.
"I was doing various projects for about two or three years through the company but started full-time in January this year," she said.
"For the past five years, I recognised the need to pull everything together and offer diverse communication services under one roof," added Hickling, who professes a love for television work, listing CVM, TVJ and Mediamix among the electronic media for which she has done production work.
"I just thought it was time for me to go towards being an independent producer, twinning TV with the other communications services, offering an integrated product," she pointed out.
Explaining one of Development Associates' specialised areas, corporate profiling, Hickling likened the process to the creation of an advertorial.
"It's really a presentation, a three to five-minute film featuring an overview of a company, its products and executives," she said. "The company might be meeting with new clients, having a special anniversary or making a CD as a sales tool."
Diverse communications is what Hickling is about.
"We have the facilities and a wide range of associates, who we work with to source the right expertise for all our projects, she added.
"We're not only about writing press releases and doing photo captions. You have to be able to reach your clients and their customers. We try to find the appropriate communications needs to suit their purposes."
Operating with a staff of six out of what was the Hicklings' residence for decades, Connolley House along Connolley Avenue in Kingston, Deborah said the classic wooden dwelling house has always been 'a centre of entrepreneurship' for her family.
So much so, her father, Professor Fred Hickling, a psychiatrist, has a practice established at the same premises.
Hickling listed television advertisements for this year's Reggae Sumfest and a two-part TVJ special, 'Quality Time', featuring reggae acts Morgan Heritage and Marcia Griffiths, as being among Development Associates' projects.
"I can't say it has been a bad year," she said, reflecting on her foray into the business world. "Some times have been slower than others but it has only been a year."
