Ben Garrett – CEO
Ben Garrett Creative was born out of The Ben Garrett Group, which was founded in 2003. Ben Garrett is an award-winning television producer and public relations professional with more than 38 years of experience, and a recognized expert on social media, viral video and Web 2.0 as it pertains to healthcare. His TV shows include “Coffee With America.” Ben also produces a number of successful Podcast series, long form documentaries for local and national TV, as well as medical segments for leading health networks, including serving as Content Marketing Director for the new Health Channel. Ben has given more than two dozen speeches on the topic of narrative and content marketing as well as social media and viral video to groups ranging from the Public Relations Society of America to the American Hospital Association to the International Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Executives.
Among his career highlights, Ben developed the first health information website for the fledgling Microsoft Network, brought the only regular medical TV series to cable network television endorsed by The New England Journal of Medicine and has worked on multiple Silver Anvil and Bronze Anvil winning campaigns, and produced, written and directed Ad Council endorsed PSA Campaigns.
Over his many years in the business his stellar list of healthcare clients has included the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Health Media Network, Healthy-TXT, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Surgeon General, the American Diabetes Association, the U.S. Olympic Committee, St Jude Medical, Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Merck, Pfizer, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and many others.
Garrett has served as Executive Producer of Staywell, the largest distributor patient education in the US, Executive Producer of New York based Vidicom, as well as Senior Vice President and head of the healthcare unit at Los Angeles-based On The Scene Productions (OTSP), Divisional Vice President at PR Newswire and Executive Producer at MultiVu, Executive Producer at the Orbis Broadcast Group in Chicago and American Medical Television, and Senior Producer for Lifetime Cable in New York, as well as a brief stint as a medical producer for NBC’s TODAY Show. His long-form TV series and specials have been seen on Lifetime, CNBC, Retirement Living Network and Discovery.
His video skills have translated well to internet and web-based applications, having directed one of the earliest and most successful web events, in December 1995, the launch of Rilutek, the first FDA approved medication for ALS. Garrett directed the first webcast from Harvard Medical School, the first webcast for the acclaimed Peabody Awards, and assisted in the development of the website healthanswers.com and directed the international web launch event of Raised Without Antibiotics (RWA) Chicken for Tyson.
Garrett was an early pioneer of hospital-based live remote satellite continuing medical education programming, having produced a dozen major hospital CME events for the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association.
Laurie Fugitt, RN BSN – Medical Editor / Chief Content Editor
Laurie Fugitt, RN BSN, is the medical editor and Chief Content Officer of the Ben Garrett Group, where she has served since 2003. She is a co-founder and board member of Georgia Overdose Prevention in Atlanta, GA. For her work in overdose prevention, Laurie was awarded the 2017 Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Health Care Heroes Award – Nurse and the 2014 March of Dimes Nurse of the Year in Public Health for Georgia.
By training, she is a postpartum (mother/baby) nurse. She collaborated with NCHRC (North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition) and parents of children lost to drug overdoses to create one of the nation’s most comprehensive 911 Medical Amnesty and Expanded Naloxone Access laws in 2014. Currently she coordinates training and distribution of naloxone rescue kits (for reversal of opioid overdoses) outside of downtown Atlanta and throughout Georgia. She is married with two grown daughters and also holds a degree in Journalism from the University of Georgia.