Entertaining Opportunity
Damon Romine succeeded in Hollywood, expanded his horizons at Touro University Worldwide
Reared in rural Carbondale, Kansas, Damon Romine knew early on that the Midwest was not his soul’s home: “I’d been bitten by the entertainment bug,” he says. “The day after graduation from the University of Missouri, I packed up the car and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment-related communications.”
He has done very well, indeed, in La La Land. Romine is National Director of Communications & Marketing for SAG-AFTRA, the union representing some 160,000 actors, broadcasters and recording artists. He helped shepherd the historic merger campaign that brought together SAG and AFTRA in 2012, and he manages the union’s external communications, including crisis management, member relations and an award-winning magazine. An author of two books, Romine also is considered an expert on the impact that popular culture has on attitudes and values.
Not one to rest on his bouquet of laurels, Romine decided he wanted a Master’s Degree, and discovered the perfect program for him was Touro’s Master of Arts degree in Media and Communications Psychology. Surprising to absolutely no one who knows him, Romine not only earned his degree in 2013, he was class Valedictorian.
Able to take all his courses online was the tipping point in Touro’s favor, he reveals. “That solidified my decision,” Romine says. “Even though I was already working in the field, the program provided me an important understanding of the theories and strategy behind the work I do, so much so that I was able to immediately apply this critical thinking to my work.”
