In 1972, Brown-Olmstead formed an independent public relations firm to service clients in the southeastern corporate, commercial and civic worlds. The firm quickly became a full-service organization, and handled more than 800 accounts and projects -- on regional, national and international bases -- from real estate development, health care, manufacturing, food service, architecture and retail to consumer products, investment and security services, governmental agencies, political candidates, and financial services. The firm was a division of Shandwick from June 1988 to spring of 1996.

Brown-Olmstead is one of the industry's Fellows, a distinction held by only a few hundred practitioners worldwide, and is also fully accredited. She has been designated one of the Ten Outstanding Atlantans, was elected a member of Leadership Atlanta, was recognized as in "Women of Achievement" by the International Women's Forum, and is listed in Outstanding Atlantans and various Who's Who publications. She has been featured in Mademoiselle magazine, Business Week, Savvy, Atlanta Weekly, Atlanta magazine, and Movers and Shakers in Georgia. As writer and director of a television special, "The Land of Cotton," she received a Gold Medal in the New York Film & TV Festival. She is an active public speaker and has addressed more than 200 meetings and conventions in her 40 years of professional life.

Client programs under her direction have included the first three-way satellite news conference linking the mayors of Chicago, Washington, and Los Angeles for Philip Morris USA, the 1986 Goodwill Games in Moscow, the development of marketing plans for the creation of the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain, a major environmental program for Waste Management tied to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 1988, and the development of the step aerobics movement for The STEP Company.

Currently, Brown-Olmstead is a member of the board of Central Atlanta Progress, the Episcopal Media Center, the Advisory Board of Shepherd Spinal Center, the Georgia Chapter of the International Women's Forum, member of the Board of Councilors for The Carter Center, board member of the Regional Business Coalition, member of ODK, board member of the Robinson College of Business, Order of the Phoenix, and an inductee of the Georgia PRSA Hall of Fame.

She has been actively involved in the development of CAP's Downtown Improvement District program through participation in the initial task force, development of uniforms and identity for the Ambassador Force, and communications training.

A past president of the Atlanta Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, she is also a member of the Atlanta Press Club and the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE). Hairston holds a bachelors degree in journalism from the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. She also has studied at the University of North Carolina on a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship and at the University of Maryland on a Knight Center Fellowship focusing on urban issues.

Among her most notable work, Hairston provided coverage of the Rev. Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, VA, during his rise to national prominence in 1980 as the founder of The Moral Majority. For this, she was honored with the Cassells Memorial Award from the Religion Newswriters Association. She was honored with three Georgia Magazine Association awards for her signature work as a columnist for Business Atlanta magazine and was named the Communicator of the Year in 1990 by the Atlanta Chapter of Women in Communications.

After joining the Atlanta Journal Constitution in 1998, she covered Atlanta City Hall for three years before turning her attentions to regional efforts to relieve growing transportation gridlock. During that time, she wrote extensively about the Georgia Department of Transportation, the State Road and Tollway Authority, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, and MARTA. In 2005, Hairston was tapped to write "Private Quarters," the wildly popular weekly profile of a metro-area home, and to cover the regions dynamic real estate market.

Since joining ABOA in October 2008, Hairston has worked with StreetSmart Technology Inc. on the launch of its high-tech parking systems and with Georgians for Economic Development on the successful campaign to allow school tax dollars to be used in special tax districts for economic development.