Carolyne L. Smith

Carolyne L. Smith, 74, founder and chairwoman of the Partnership of Packer, Oesterling & Smith, known as PPO&S, a prominent Harrisburg-based marketing communications firm, died July 31, at home.
Though she had recently moved to Camp Hill, she was for many years a resident of the Shipoke neighborhood of Harrisburg.
Smith was a significant influence in the world of advertising, public relations, and marketing in Central Pennsylvania and beyond. She was particularly noted for her early expertise in social marketing. She was especially proud of the outreach results she achieved for a number of maternal-oriented state-run programs, including the Family and Child Health Outreach Program, the Special Kids Network, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), adultBasic, Medicaid, and the Statewide Adoption Network. In 2003, she was invited to address a national conference on child services to relate how she designed and implemented the marketing program that boosted enrollment in Pennsylvania’s CHIP by 40,000 children.
She also worked with Commonwealth Libraries and the Pennsylvania Library Association on the state’s first-ever collaborative program to promote the development of early literacy skills and was instrumental in creating the PA Forward program to give Pennsylvanians a new way to relate to and use public libraries.
Her insight and skills helped many private-sector clients as well brand and launch new products and initiatives. Long-time clients she helped nurture in the private sector included Playworld, Harristown, Strawberry Square, and the early years of the Pennsylvania Cable Television Association.
Smith was honored on multiple occasions by her industry. She received Crystal Prism Awards from District 2 of the American Advertising Federation in 1973 and 1985 for outstanding professionalism and service to the advertising community. She was given the Silver Medal Award for lifetime achievement by the Central Pennsylvania Advertising Federation in 1990. She also won hundreds of industry awards for the work she led for the agency’s clients.
A strong-willed entrepreneur, famously outspoken and at times blunt, Smith started her firm from scratch and built it into one of the most creative and effective agencies in the state. She often recounted how she went into business for herself in 1980 because she had been excluded from becoming a partner by the “old boys’ club” at the firm where she previously worked. She referred affectionately to her initial partners—Don Oesterling and Herbert M. Packer, Jr., both now deceased, and Tom Previc, who left the firm in 1987—as her “suits,” the men who helped get in the door, after which she picked up the ball and ran with it.
Under Smith’s leadership, PPO&S grew from a start-up with four employees to a highly regarded team of 16 communications professionals with clients across multiple states. In 2010, Smith relinquished the presidency of the firm and its day-to-day supervision to her current partner, Virginia A. Roth. At that point Smith took on the title of chairwoman and continued to serve the firm as a strategic advisor.
“Every day that I knew her, Carolyne worked for the betterment of her profession and her community, and few others have enjoyed her level of influence in our region over the span of four continuous decades,” Roth said. “She was a mentor and role model for countless women and men in Central Pennsylvania. She was a wonderful friend, and generous colleague. She had an unlimited supply of energy and creativity to go with her deep commitment to service. When Carolyne blazed through a room, a meeting, or a project, you couldn’t help but be caught up in her whirlwind. She was a brilliant and irresistible force of nature.”
In her private life, Smith loved to cook and entertain. “She cooked with Julia Child perfection and wrapped packages like a Tiffany sales clerk,” said long-time friend Nan Spiers-Marsh. Smith also was a family matriarch who looked after the well-being not only of her beloved husband, Dudley, but also the children and young adults from many parts of her family tree and even those belonging to the families of close friends. Spiers-Marsh said her friend was “joyous when they achieved” and “fierce” when she disapproved of their direction.
Spiers-Marsh said she believed that an “impoverished girlhood” and a struggle to survive harsh winters on a remote farm in her native Alberta, Canada, “accounted for Carolyne’s empathy for the underprivileged, for the immigrant, for women whose labor went unheralded. I also believe she always heard the voice of her father saying, ‘You can do it, kid!’”
Smith’s spirit and success have been recognized by numerous awards, including as a recipient of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development’s Best 50 Women in Business and the Greater Harrisburg YWCA’s prestigious Legacy Award.
Smith established the “In a Pinch Fund” to help women living at the Greater Harrisburg YWCA with one-time grants to cover immediate needs such as gas to get to a job interview, a winter coat, eyeglasses, a good haircut, or a new pair of shoes. “When you are trying to turn your life around, sometimes it’s the tiny obstacles that prove the hardest to overcome,” she said at the time. Since 2004, the fund has amassed nearly $10,000 to help women in need. She frequently took on worthy organizations as pro bono clients of the firm.
In recent years, Smith and PPO&S took up the cause of the State Street Academy of Music. Carmen Finestra, vice president of the board of the State Street Academy, said Smith and her firm were “enthusiastic partners.” He noted that “Carolyne Smith’s involvement with our board and the volunteers from PPO&S have enabled the State Street Academy of Music to successfully get our message out to the community … [and] also helped to make us a presence in the arts and business world, which has enabled us to meet our fundraising goals and raise our awareness among cultural leaders.”
Carolyne has served on numerous community boards, including the Harristown Development Corporation board since 1982 and the boards of the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, the Program for Female Offenders, the Pennsylvania Coalition to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the Harrisburg Area AIDS Alliance, and Harrisburg Civic Baseball Corporation. She was a “founding mother” of the Monday Club, a networking organization for women.
Surviving Smith are her husband, M. Dudley of Camp Hill, her sister Sandy and her husband Doug Tarlton, of Las Vegas, a niece Amber Holmes and nephew Michael Tarlton, both of Las Vegas, a stepson Rick Smith of New York City, and other extended family. Burial will be at the convenience of the family. To honor Carolyne’s wishes there will be no memorial service.
In lieu of flowers, donations to honor her spirit and memory are encouraged to “In A Pinch Fund”, YWCA of Harrisburg, 1101 Market Street, Harrisburg, PA 17103 or the State Street Academy, 110 State Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101.
Notes of memory may be posted at www.pposinc.com/carolyne