Bsharah Public Relations (BPR) is a highly effective and growing PR firm. Located in Royal Oak, it serves public- and private-sector clients throughout the Detroit area.
In order to best achieve strategy, clarity, and impact, we will continually learn about your organization and your goals, while offering strategic advice and options as we go that fit your evolving needs and situation. For us, it’s about formulating customized deliverables that go beyond your expectations. At Bsharah Public Relations, providing the highest quality services and products to clients are paramount.
My team and I specialize in strategic public relations counsel.
Michael Bsharah possesses more than 30 years of experience in public relations and communications, working productively and successfully with employers and clients alike. After spending time as an account executive and account supervisor with two other public relations firms, he was recruited in 1998 by then-Dearborn, Mich. Mayor Michael A. Guido to be both his press secretary and the director of the city’s Department of Public Information.
During his tenure with the City of Dearborn, Bsharah exceeded the Mayor’s charge for modernizing and energizing the department. He helped establish the City of Dearborn as a constructive force for change, growth, and diversity through local, regional, and national electronic, print media, and structured community word-of-mouth messaging. He frequently advised and collaborated with Mayor Guido and other senior staff on a range of issues, often preparing the mayor for local, regional, and national media opportunities, while regularly representing the city on television, radio and in print as its spokesperson.
Due to several crises that confronted the city in the early days of his watch, Bsharah established a well-respected expertise in managing both crisis communication and the crises themselves. He helped direct communications and community outreach following a 1998 summer storm which took out power for one third of Dearborn’s homes for a week. That was followed by a hazardous materials spill in a neighborhood and the explosion that ripped through the Ford Rouge Powerplant in early 1999.
In September 2000, he launched Bsharah Public Relations.
Throughout his career, Bsharah has provided communication counsel and services to a wide range of Michigan and West Virginia organizations and industries including waste management, law, faith-based, environmental/brownfield redevelopment, higher education, organized labor and labor-management coalitions, and municipal, county and federal government entities.
Retained by the United States Census Bureau in November 2009, Bsharah Public Relations produced and implemented strategic communication plans for the Detroit Region. He developed solid, ongoing relationships with key organizations and political leaders throughout the region that led to record Census participation in Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.
In fall of 2010, Bsharah was presented with two awards of recognition from the U.S. Census for his work in the national effort. “As a team leader and partnership specialist, Mr. Bsharah has made a huge contribution to the Detroit Regional Census Center Partnership Program. His work was crucial in helping us connect to the hard-to-count and increase participation and response rates in his area of consideration. His work with local government officials and community groups solidified partners for the current Census and likely for the next 10 years.”
Starting in early 2011, Bsharah was invited by the White House Office on Public Engagement to participate in a series of issue-oriented conference calls with national community leaders on a wide range of issues including sustaining landmark American health care reform and the future of United States economic aid to developing nations. A few years later, he participated in a conference call with Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region, Phil Gordon, at the invitation of the White House Office on Public Engagement.
Bsharah Public Relations has produced hundreds of media results on behalf of clients. In 2019 and 2020, Bsharah Public Relations achieved significant local, regional, national and international client results following the tragic, high-profile deaths of Titus Cromer, Jr. and Bobby Reyes. BPR’s work on behalf of a law firm about the impact of COVID-19 on families and frontline essential healthcare workers generated many of the top stories in print and evening television news coverage throughout much of 2020.
Federico Martinez
Federico Martinez is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years of experience in media and public relations at the local and national level.
As a state political reporter for Booth Newspapers in Michigan, he wrote extensively on issues including education, immigration, racial inequity, housing blight, and the farm worker community. He has covered Michigan gubernatorial elections and as political reporter for Toledo, Ohio’s largest newspaper, was assigned to travel with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 Presidential campaign.
As a senior investigative reporter for the Standard-Times in San Angelo, TX, his year-long series about the city’s homeless community, and illegal gambling establishments earned top awards from the Associated Press. His live reporting efforts from Haiti, earned the Associated Press’s prestigious Texas STAR Online Package of the Year in 2016. Later, he shifted gears and served as a music writer for USA Today Network in Texas, where he received top accolades from the Associated Press for best music column (Tejas Jukebox), social media use and various feature stories.
Federico has served as public relations specialist for the Sofia Quintero Arts & Cultural Center in Toledo, OH, where he worked with local media to publicize construction of a multimillion-dollar culinary arts center, renovated art gallery and performance auditorium.
He served in a similar role at the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan promoting the organization’s many programs, which included rehabilitation training for gang youth, assistance to domestic violence victims and immigration services. In addition to developing a crisis management plan for the center, he was responsible for the agency’s website management, social media platforms and marketing efforts.
In 2020, Federico was hired as a consultant by political candidates in southeast Florida to develop and oversee their social media campaign strategies after COVID-19 hampered traditional campaign efforts.
A farmworker during his youth, Federico was raised in Adrian, Michigan and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Michigan State University. While still a student, he began working full-time writing stories and editing copy for El Renacimiento, a weekly, bilingual newspaper in Lansing, MI.
In 2009 he was hired as an adjunct journalism professor at MSU where he was responsible for developing the curriculum for the school’s capstone advanced journalism course, JRN 400, which taught students best practices for social media platforms.
He has served as a board member for the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame and MSU Hispanic Journalism Scholarship Program, Professional Advisor for the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association and Advisory Committee Member for the MSU School of Journalism.
His published research studies include “The Status of Latinos in Michigan Media” – Michigan Commission of Spanish-Speaking Affairs; and “The History of the Chicano Movement in Michigan,” – Michigan State University Julian Samora Hispanic Research Institute.
Julia Kapilango
Julia is our newest member of BPR. She brings a vast knowledge in community outreach, small business digital marketing and governmental partnerships in the areas of Art, Culture, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Her master’s in social media marketing research and development has afforded opportunities in promoting restorative Justice initiatives, food sovereignty and entertainment. Julia loves designing luxury socks that highlight historical moments and fun.
She is a trained community gardener and published author. In her spare time she curates local exhibitions and H2BE Dearborn’s Juneteenth Mobility Stroll and Roll Parade.