Holly Hauser’s career in public relations has taken on “Wings.”
A University of Miami senior who cocaptains its cheerleading team has begun her internship at Wings Over Miami, a historical aviation museum located at Miami Executive Airport in Kendall.
It all came about when Holly Hauser’s public relations professor assigned an interview with Suze Rice, president of Wings Over Miami, the non-profit organization that operates one of South Florida’s unique exhibits of memorabilia and vintage aircraft.
Discussing her new duties while strolling through Wings’ hangar, Holly suddenly stopped short.
“That’s what my Dad flew in Vietnam,” she exclaimed to Rice, spotting the black F-14 Tomcat jet fighter that takes up the length of Wings’ exhibition hangar, displaying varied full-size aircraft at 12800 SW 145 Ave. in what was know formerly as Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport.”
Holly next brought her dad to look over the Wings’ exhibits that number in the thousands, from leather flight jackets and model planes to a World War II jeep. When Rick Hauser eyed that lifesize Tomcat with its snazzy tail emblem, a comic cat armed with a forked stick, “it almost brought tears to his eyes,” she related.
After a three-year tour in Vietnam during 14 years as an Air Force jet pilot, Rick Hauser left the service to begin 30 years of commercial piloting with U.S. Airlines.
He later retired to Key Largo with his wife, Joan. There Holly, 21, and brother, Cole, 19, now a student at the University of Florida, grew up before college days. “He [Cole] thinks he might go into flying, but I wonder,” Holly said. “Flying just comes in the family,” she added, noting a grandfather served in U.S. Air Force Intelligence.
Now, pursuing majors in both psychology and public relations with a minor in broadcast journalism, she is using her skills to write news releases, social messages, newsletter features and biographies to highlight Wings fly-in events, new exhibits and its year-around activities.
Once a high honors (GPA: 4.4) student at Coral Shores High School, her media career began writing and copy editing for the high school yearbook and newspaper, The Hurricane Watch. On scholarship at UM, her talents expanded into writing, producing and working with the university’s UMTV Channel 96/166 (broadcast in Coral Gables on Comcast Channel 96) to further develop broadcast experience.
“I haven’t decided yet whether I’d like to go further in broadcast or public relations,” she said.
“There appear to be many more opportunities in the public relations area and I’m also told it’s hard to get a job in broadcast journalism,” she said, adding that “being a people-oriented person” would most likely help direct her future.
With a charismatic personality and fastdeveloping media know-how, Holly Hauser, for now, seems destined to help Wings Over Miami in its primary mission to honor and preserve the history of Florida’s often-overlooked aviation pioneers. For details about the aviation museum, visit www.wingsovermiami.com or call 305-323-9995.
