Fame's 15 minutes? Try 13 years of work

When Reno's Louis Navellier appears

as a guest host of CNBC's televised

"Squawk Box" on Oct. 16, viewers will

see the polished president and chief executive

officer of Navellier & Associates,

Inc. and Navellier

Management, Inc.,

talking about some

of his stock picks

and providing his

thoughts on the day's

economic events.

What they won't see is all the work

that Janice Rushing put into getting

him there.

Rushing, public relations director for

Navellier, spends much of each working

day keeping in touch with producers and

editors at most of the biggest business

media outfits in the nation.

She lets television producers know

when Navellier will be in New York or

other media centers and works with them

to get him onto business news programs

at CNBC, Fox or Bloomberg TV.

She schedules the two or three radio

interviews that Navellier undertakes each

week and encourages him to use spare

minutes in his day to talk with reporters

who are staring at a deadline.

Navellier gives those reporters the

insight he gathers as publisher of two

investment letters, manager of private

investment funds and head of the

Millennium group of mutual funds.

Rushing has worked for 13 years to

get to the enviable position where

reporters knock on her door to provide

exposure to Navellier and the family of

funds that bear his name.

In an interview last week, Rushing

said the key to her success has been the

ability to put herself in the shoes of

a reporter.

"They have deadlines. They need to

fill a space," she said.

When she came on board at Navellier

in 1989 she was one of the first

employees at the employee-owned company

Rushing spent days at the public

library, poring through business newspapers

and financial magazines.

She began compiling a list of media

contacts and made sure each reporter,

editor or producer started receiving one

of the newsletters produced by Navellier.

"You've got to have something,"

she said.

When reporters' interest was spurred

enough by the newsletter to bring an

inquiry, Rushing made sure she handled

their calls personally and got interviews

arranged quickly.

And from her first days on the

job, Rushing preached the gospel of

publicity.

"Press is almost as important as

client," she told Navellier and others in

the company. "If you had to pay for all

that press, it would cost a fortune.

Publicity and performance

proved a good

combination at

Navellier. The

company had $50

million under management

when Rushing came

on board in 1989; today, it oversees about

$5 billion.

But Rushing's work isn't over.

These days, she makes sure that

Navellier isn't over-exposed. Her rule of

thumb for national television appearances

is that her boss doesn't appear more

than once a week. (She is making a small

exception next month when his guest

host shot on CNBC will come within

five days of an appearance on Fox.)

She keeps up with the numerous comings

and goings in the media business,

making sure her thick book of contacts is

up to date.

And she persists in getting more

exposure for Navellier in publications

where he hopes to be seen.

By the way, this isn't all that Rushing

does all day. She also arranges more than

50 seminars and presentations a year for

Navellier across the country.

"I travel a lot," she said. "I love my job.

I get to meet an extraordinary number of

people."

Oh, and about the preparations for

"Squawk Box":

In the days before Navallier's appearance,

his staff will provide CNBC producers

with a list of about five stocks that

Navallier would like to discuss during the

program. In exchange, he'll be asked to

sign statements concerning his interest

ownership or otherwise in the stocks.