Bruce Farrell, Fellow (Class of 2021)
Proposal Director (Retired)
Bio
Bruce is a business communications and development professional with a real passion for design. He specializes in bringing strong design principles to proposals, presentations, and all other business documents. He has over 30 years of experience in the field.
He was working as a Proposal Director for the Management Consulting practice of Plante Moran. In July 2020, he had a terrible bicycle accident that changed his life. He retired from the firm and continues to make his recovery. He served on the board of APMP for two years. He also was on the Regional Board (GMC) for ten years, including three years as the President.
Bruce is a musician, playing guitar in several bands.
What does being an APMP Fellow mean to you?
It pleasantly surprised me when I was awarded APMP Fellow. I'm humbled by the honor.
What's your best memory from attending an APMP event?
I love talking to people. Everybody. It's the best part.
I think it was the first time or second time I saw Dr. Tom Sant, and he was doing executive summaries. Near the end of his session, he asked somebody he didn’t know from the crowd who was having trouble with an executive summary. And he said, let’s see if we can work on that. He then asked her what she needed, what kind of outcomes she expected, and what her end product should look like. He wrote this all out on a whiteboard.
Then, right off the top of his head, he looked at what was on the board and spoke out an executive summary that I would put in a proposal today. It was mind-blowing. So thank you, Tom.
What advice do you have for a proposal professional entering our field?
I think there’s a lot of value in knowing what you do well, knowing what you don’t do well, and knowing where you want to be. Have a clear path goal.
APMP has a lot of resources. Use them.
Anything else you would like to share?
I love developing presentations. Someday, I hope to be presenting them again.
