Local Woman’s Business Takes Her From Coffee Shops to the Oscars and Everywhere in Between

As the owner of her own communications firm, Rebecca Suhy has to know how to do a little bit of just about everything. 

From her home in Brecksville (and the nearby ), she does everything from traditional public relations—print, video and photo—to social media for her clients. Her days vary, allowing her to balance a busy job with her toddler, her stepdaughters’ sports, activities and concerts and the work schedule of her husband, a part-time Brecksville firefighter.

“It’s such a nontraditional lifestyle,” she said.  

But she likes it. Suhy lost her traditional public relations job in June 2009, a victim of the economy, she said. 

But in retrospect, Suhy said she thinks it was a blessing that gave her the guts to go for her dream of running her own business. For the past two years, she has been working for clients under Rebecca Suhy Communications. Her husband, Michael Suhy, supports her decision and even helps out with some of the finances. It’s what she always wanted to do, he said.

“Sometimes, you just have to go for it and do it,” Michael Suhy added. 

Suhy said she planned to start out slow, freelancing here and there, but it picked up quicker than she thought. 

“With having your own business, nothing is stable,” she added. “It ebbs and flows.”

And her business has given her opportunities to pursue other dreams, as well. Last weekend, Suhy was in Los Angeles, helping to promote a client’s product at a swag event the day before the Academy Awards. A self-proclaimed celebrity gossip fan, the event was a “personal dream”– and one that she hopes is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she said, smiling. Her husband said he explained it to friends as her chance to go to the Super Bowl.

Suhy was in L.A. with BTZ Brand, promoting the Swisspers products for U.S. Cotton. Swisspers is a set of cotton beauty products, designed to help apply and remove make-up properly. 

Suhy said she works closely with BTZ Brand, which helps other companies develop their brands, and often visits their office to work. With the Swisspers product, Suhy said the campaign began about a year ago, and the first public push with Remove It Right, a focus on healthy make-up removal, was in December. A month later, the company was contacted to be part of the Red Carpet Style Lounge at the Oscars, and a month after that, Suhy was on a plane to L.A. on a snowy Ohio Friday.

“Everything happened really fast,” Suhy said.

The people—celebrities from movies and reality TV shows, make-up artists and the media—who came through the room seemed interested in the product, Suhy said, and some already recognized it.

Suhy attributes a lot of her success to maintaining relationships with people she’s worked with before, and she said that social media has played a big role in those connections. And those connections keep her busy.

“I don’t say no to anything,” she said.