Building Our Bench

Baseball season is in full swing (Go Nats!), but some sports analogies are timeless. One of our favorites is “building the bench” – for us, it refers to identifying talented team members who can help support a client’s communications program by being available when they are needed to be “called up to the plate.”

Since launching RENEW PR in January of 2015, we’ve had several occasions where we’ve needed “bench strength” to ensure we were able to fully respond to a client’s communications challenges. Our Network Partners program has been instrumental in helping us to respond to those challenges with professionals from firms such as Tipton Inc, hagen inc, and iSpy Creative joining our client teams. As we continue to grow, we've needed additional resources to meet client demand.

Today we are proud to announce an expansion beyond our Network Partners idea to include a more specific “Bench” of talented individual professionals who can be (and have been) called on year-round to help us respond to client situations in which a multi-person PR team with expertise in and beyond Washington is required. Our new Bench includes three extremely talented independent public relations professionals who are ready to help us work with clients nationwide.

Our Bench is different from our Network Partners in that it is staffed only by independent public relations professionals who can become adjunct RENEWPR team members on an as needed basis at any time. In this way, we continue to offer clients a seamless experience even with a larger team. While our Network Partners program includes mostly small, independent firms, our Bench includes only individual, independent public relations counselors. In both cases, the people we partner with have worked with me in the past, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with them again. Here is a bit of background about each member of our Bench:

Lowen Baumgarten is an independent communications consultant and writer in San Francisco with more than a decade of experience in content development, public affairs and issue research and media analysis. He’s a smart, witty and professional colleague who understands how to identify the heart of an issue and describe it in clear, persuasive writing. Lowen and I were colleagues for several years in Washington, D.C. and I’m looking forward to working with him again in this new capacity. Hello again Lowen! Read Lowen’s bio in the Our Bench section of the Team page on our website.

Jayne Brady is an independent public relations counselor in the Washington, D.C. area with decades of experience in media relations, crisis communications and corporate and government communications. She’s calm under pressure and understands what makes a good story and how best to tell that story to a variety of different audiences. I’ve had the good fortune to work with Jayne on behalf of RENEWPR client 247Solar Inc. and I’m happy to continue that partnership in this new, expanded role. In fact, Jayne was previously a Network Partner, based on my nearly 20-year friendship with her dating back to the U.S. Department of Energy. Welcome back, Jayne! Read Jayne’s bio in the Our Bench section of the Team page on our website.

Sarah Prud’homme is an independent public relations counselor in Cincinnati with more than a decade of experience in media relations and event management. She’s a delightful, team-oriented colleague who understands how to listen and lead and knows what it means to deliver results. I’ve had the good fortune to work with Sarah here in Washington, D.C. in the past, and I look forward to many more such opportunities as we expand our national capabilities. Thank you, Sarah! Read Sarah’s bio in the Our Bench section of the Team page on our website.

Going forward, we will likely add additional experts to our Bench as we grow this element of our business. For now, we’ll continue working with our Bench as clients ask us to build a team that can collaborate on a campaign, manage an event or program, or respond to a crisis. These talented individuals are key to our ability to ramp up quickly and tackle multiple challenges at once.

If you’d like to learn more about our Bench, drop us a line or give us a call. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for information and updates on our work, team and clients.