Teresa Rosenberger, a senior advisor with Bernstein Shur, will receive the Business & Industry Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award this fall. During an interview about the honor, Rosenberger said she should write a book about her time as a speech writer in the offices of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
It’s a chapter in the amazing life of one of the most highly respected government affairs advisors in New Hampshire.
Rosenberger will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at BIA’s 111th Annual Dinner and Awards Celebration, presented by Eversource, Oct. 23 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Manchester. David Greer, CEO of Wire Belt Company of America, and New Hampshire Senate President Jeb Bradley will also receive Lifetime Achievement Awards, sponsored by Whelen Engineering Company. The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester will receive BIA’s New Hampshire Advantage Award, sponsored by Bank of America. (For a list of past winners, visit https://bit.ly/BIAhonorees.)
Rosenberger’s resume also includes serving as president of Devine Strategies, president of Fairpoint Communications and director of government relations for McLane Middleton.
Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Rosenberger earned a journalism degree from UNC Chapel Hill in 1971. After graduating, she wanted to travel to Europe with friends, but her father said she had to look for a job. So, she headed to Washington and applied to only top news outlets like the Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report.
“I was thinking I wouldn’t get a job, and then my dad would let me go to Europe,” Rosenberger said. “At an interview with U.S. News, I typed 13 words in a minute with nine errors. So, not good, but they offered me a job on the spot.”
Preferring Europe, she talked to her journalism professor, who advised: You didn’t graduate at the top of your class. You can’t type. You know how many of your classmates would want that job?
“I didn’t end up going to Europe,” she said about taking the job.
Six months later, she was hired in Nixon’s office. Rosenberger wrote speeches for several administration members, and white papers for the president, detailing areas he was visiting, the backgrounds of who he was meeting with, the political environment and more.
She started six weeks before Watergate.
“The White House would give you a telephone directory, everyone by name and their subject matter,” she said. “The break-in happened at Watergate, and the guards came in the next morning and asked for the directories. You were seeing names in the newspaper, G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, etc. Their names were erased from the directory. The coverup happened immediately.”
Rosenberger and her husband, Eric, came to New Hampshire in 1991. Eric had been working in China, where he was running nonprofits. Tiananmen Square happened, and the couple decided a change of place was in order. Eric accepted a job as head of development for St. Paul’s School in Concord and she began work as a communications and political consultant for AARP. Her job was to make health care an issue in the 1992 first-in-the-nation presidential primary, which Rosenberger said was not terribly hard but great fun to see New Hampshire primary politics in action.
While Rosenberger has worked on myriad complex issues, her proudest advocacy work is personal. Her life changed in 2001 while serving as director of government relations with Devine Millimet & Branch.
Rosenberger and her husband were getting ready for a bike trip through Spain. They were training when Rosenberger fell off her bike crossing a speed bump near Concord Hospital and suffered a traumatic brain injury. She was in a coma for three days, and her recovery required relearning nearly everything. She eased back into work after six months and didn’t drive for over a year.
Her first client upon returning to work was the New Hampshire Brain Injury Association. “I remember going for an interview and saying I had a brain injury. It was the first time I had to say that,” she said. “And, yes, I was wearing a helmet. If I wasn’t, I would be dead.”
Rosenberger and the Brain Injury Association won a tough battle in passing legislation that required kids to wear helmets while biking.
“It was really important to me knowing the helmet I was wearing saved my life and the law could benefit kids,” said the mom of three children and four grandchildren.
Colleague Jim Merrill, New Hampshire managing shareholder at Bernstein Shur, said Rosenberger is very deserving of BIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
“She is a force of nature with boundless energy and brilliant insights, universally beloved by all who know her,” he said. “Teresa is an exceptionally accomplished professional. However, those who are fortunate enough to know Teresa know she is an even better human being.”
While honored to accept BIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Rosenberger is not close to calling it a career.
“You can’t live in New Hampshire and not stay active from my point of view,” she said.
Staying active extends to her volunteerism. Rosenberger is a member of the Concord Planning Board and serves on the board of directors of the Granite State Children’s Alliance, Ledyard National Bank, New England Council, and New Hampshire Humanities. She served on the New Hampshire Public Broadcasting System board, the NH Preservation Alliance as well as other past boards too long to list.
She is proud to have graduated from the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural Leadership program. Mentoring is important, she said, adding she likes working with younger people. Following her experience in Leadership Greater Concord, she helped the chamber launch a student version and later became chair of the Concord chamber board.
With that, Rosenberger offers mentorship on critical issues in New Hampshire.
“We all need to relearn to talk to each other and respect each other’s points of view,” she said. “I’m amazed at how we’re labeling and pigeon-holing people. We have real issues with mental health, homelessness, housing and so many more critical issues that we need to work together to solve. The fabric of a small rural state means rolling up our sleeves and working together.”
For tickets to BIA’s Annual Dinner and to see a list of event sponsors, visit https://bit.ly/BIAAnnualDinner2024.
Rick Fabrizio is BIA’s director of communications and public policy.
