Rising Stars: Meet Pamela Stewart of Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pamela Stewart.

Hi Pamela, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started my own PR firm in 1986 at the age of 27 and have been self employed ever since, which is something I am extremely proud of! 2026 will be 40 years. I relocated from Southern California to Boulder in 1992 where I was struggling to find my niche, and how to make a living in this still-sleepy college town. I had worked for a multinational PR firm in LA as well as becoming an accomplished triathlete (6 time Ironman, etc..) Fast forward to 1995, when I met my husband Bill and he was heavily involved in the natural products industry, also a very young industry. Long story short, he brought me into the industry and we quickly became the “go to” public relations firm in natural products. Over the course of the last 30 years, we have represented many leading brands such as Cascadian Farm, Blue Sky Soda, Blue Diamond, Brown Cow, and even launched Theo Chocolate, Numi Tea and others from start up. I teamed up with three other PR pros in 1997 to start Fresh Ideas Group, but then after one year reverted back to my own consulting business after realizing we four women didn’t have the same long term goals. Essenza has weathered economic setbacks such as 2008 which was the first big hit to my company. Then , as the digital world began to evolve, we were forced to change our business model to include digital communications, and that of course has held steadfast and only grown as people turned to their devices for information rather than print media. My husband and I relocated our primary home to Durango CO in search of a quieter life as the front range was booming and the development in Boulder was disturbing, but I kept a condo and business foothold in Boulder. And then, in 2011 I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer and came close to dying in 2012 because of a reaction to one of the chemo drugs, Taxol. Once I started on the Taxol I quickly slipped into a mental state that eventually became catatonia. I was alive but not really responsive. Didn’t speak, didn’t eat. I barely survived a suicide attempt as my husband found me floating in the bathtub one evening barely conscious and at that point he knew he needed professional help and I was checked into a mental health center. Ultimately they could not help me as no one knew, at the time, that the mental breakdown was not depression, it was drug toxicity, which only came to light many months later after I “popped out of my hole” as my husband said. I spent almost 8 weeks at Boulder Community Hospital, partly in ICU as my vitals were starting to fail due to lack of nutrition (I went from 130 lbs to 90 lbs). Eventually, with the help of a court order as I was technically a ward of the state due to the suicide attempt, I began ECT – electroconvulsive therapy at the Guerra Fisher Institute at BCH. Shock therapy! The doctors had little hope of my ever recovering as I had been “checked out” for so long. But lo and behold, after the third ECT treatment, my husband reported that I “shot up in bed, demanded my phone and computer stating that I was going to write a book and go on Oprah!) Clearly I was “in there” all along, I just couldn’t communicate! I stayed in the hospital for a few more weeks to continue the ECT and eventually was released to the care of my dear friends nearby before my husband could come up from Durango and prepare for us to go back south. The doctors insisted I would need “maintenance” for the rest of my life as I was the worst case they had ever seen. I know in my heart of hearts that I would be FINE and yes, 13 years later, never had a relapse. It was only later in the summer when I began to wrestle with my insurance company who refused to pay for anything related to mental health as that was not covered in my policy, that I found an attorney in Denver who was so impassioned by my story that they agreed to take on the case of appealing to the insurance company. An oncologist at Rocky Mountain Cancer Center who had evaluated me while I was in the hospital agreed to write a letter confirming that my mental health crisis was due to Taxol toxicity and not depression. Others also stepped up to confirm that my mental state changed dramatically the day I started the Taxol drug, a know neuro-toxin, and declined so severely each time I had an infusion that I was basically living on Lorazapam, an anti-anxiety medication, just to survive. All this finally convinced the insurance company and they consequently paid all the medical expenses, totally close to a half a million dollars. I went back to Durango for the rest of the summer to recover and try and resume my normal life. One side effect of ECT is memory loss…I experienced a lot of memory loss of specific times in my life. Not my childhood but in the 10-20 years prior. I still have not recovered all my memory and frankly, I hope to NEVER remember the cancer journey and hospital ordeal as all that is a complete blur.

Back to the business, well needless to say, the business went to fumes, save for ONE client that my good friend and former FIG partner kept going. Never one to cry uncle though I rebuilt the biz and had the strongest years every in 2014-2017. I suffered a few more health challenges including a traumatic Mohs surgery, two broken bones from bike crashes, the dealth of my father, several beloved pets, but all in all considered those normal ups and downs of life. Then, in early 2018 we were dealt with another huge blow – my beloved husband was diagnosed with ALS and he passed in November 2018. The critical part of this story is that he chose the MAID route (medical aid in dying) as he knew this disease was fatal and refused to whither away. So, our two kids stepped up and the five of us took on the monumental challenge of shepherding him to his final exit on November 3, 2018. Grief-stricken I could not even think about trying to grow the business, just maintain the best I could, and then a little over a year later, just as I was getting on my feet, COVID happened. I moved back to Boulder in May 2020 while pursuing a certificate in personal coaching as I expected the business not to survive, but again, my reputation and longevity in the industry helped me bridge through COVID and again, we had some strong years.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
NO SMOOTH ROAD!!!! Marketing is a tough business especially during economic hard times. I had to weather 2008, and personal struggles with cancer, my husband’s passing from ALS, COVID, and now, four years of roller coaster with our new adminstration!

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We invented the virtual model! I have in my 40 years only had a brick and mortar office space for about 5 years…and I have been able to weather so many challenges, as well as the volatility of being in marketing which is sadly one of the first things to get cut when budgets go, using a simple formula – spend less than you earn!! My overhead has always been minimal and save for a couple years when I had employees, my team has been 100% contract labor. The incredible thing is that our clients never realized we were not all under one roof, a testament to my philosophy around team work, rewarding and rewarding and respecting hard work and treating people as my equals. They work WITH me, not FOR me.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
AI will continue to change our content creation-based industry. that is 100% the biggest challenge we face. Digital communications has changed PR night and day, but AI, we have yet to see what will happen. I think at some point what WE do as people will be obsolete.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.essenzacomm.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/essenzacommunications/