Management Team
James B. Crawford, President and Founder
571-261-8230
jcrawford@crawfordpr.com
Twitter: @crawford_pr
LinkedIn: Profile
Before launching Crawford PR, Jim Crawford was the speechwriter for Bert Roberts, Chairman of MCI, and for Dan Akerson, then President of MCI and now Chairman of General Motors. Jim also served as MCI’s director of policy PR in the run-up to passage of the federal Telecommunications Act, driving their pro-competitive agenda. After a decade in corporate PR, leading national campaigns and managing Top 10 agencies in the U.S. and abroad, he set out to conquer new turf.
In 1996, Jim founded Crawford PR to provide companies with a unique alternative: senior level experience and superior performance at a budget-conscious price. Today Crawford PR is recognized as a leading independent public relations agency serving technology and telecommunications innovators ranging from startups to members of the Fortune 500.
As a former journalist, Jim understands what motivates reporters and editors: strong news value, compelling and creative story lines, timeliness, and that all-important first look at the exclusive advance. His first-hand experience with press and ability to position each client as the go-to thought leader in its field translate to superlative media coverage, year-after-year.
Crawford is selective about the clients we take on. As a serial entrepreneur, Jim gravitates toward companies that share his contrarian viewpoint and seek to shake up the market. Iconoclasm is in the blood. More than a decade before established media moved online, Jim broke new ground by launching one of the first interactive online financial news and advisory services on a global packet-switched network. Once the exclusive province of aficionados, such real time, online interactivity today is the foundation of the Internet and social media. In Jim’s view, PR is on the same plane: it’s the process of making the client’s vision the new standard and benchmark of their industry.
Jim remains true to the spirit of innovation. Over the last decade Crawford has been called on repeatedly to defend competitive players against entrenched monopolies. Among the agency’s many successes: In 2008 Crawford PR was honored by PR News for “Best PR During Litigation or Crisis” for our public affairs campaign defeating wholesale rate hikes by the Baby Bells — a move that would have priced broadband competitors out of the market. That single policy victory, a come-from-behind win likened to Mission Impossible, ensured the future of the competitive broadband industry.
Jim’s love of adventure and “high risk/high reward” carries over into his personal life. When not chasing new opportunities for clients, he pursues his passion for rock climbing, motorcycling, and riding thoroughbred horses in the hunter-jumper class.
Kate Schackai, Vice President
202-681-8045
kschackai@crawfordpr.com
Twitter: @kateschackai
LinkedIn: Profile
Kate jumped into the communications industry with both feet, running New Hampshire media for the Ron Paul Presidential Campaign in both the 2008 and 2012 races. In that capacity, she handled in-state earned media strategy, drafted and distributed campaign press releases, pitched and scheduled interviews, answered media inquiries, and served as a campaign spokesperson for NH media, as well as for national and international media on topics relating to the first in the nation primary.
Thanks to the Paul Campaign, Kate has been interviewed by national outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, RealClearPolitics, and Politico, as well as regional media including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Concord Monitor, The Union Leader, WMUR-TV, and KVUE-TV.
Kate’s work with the press supported an outstanding outreach effort in-state, culminating in a pundit-defying second-place finish that cemented Dr. Paul’s top-tier status in the race for the GOP nomination.
Working simultaneously at Crawford, Kate has focused on client strategy, with a special affinity for content creation and relationship-building via social media and good old-fashioned people skills. Her chief PR interest is in the holistic crafting of a company’s reputation, harnessing the tools of marketing, advertising, and publicity to create an image that drives loyalty and growth. You can read her tips, analysis, and musings in Crawford’s White Hat PR blog.
Before joining Crawford PR, Kate worked in web development, organic search strategy, and online content creation, and contributed legal research and project management to the American Enterprise Institute and the Verizon legal department. She is an unabashed tech, legal, and policy geek.
Kate graduated cum laude from Pomona College in 2001 with a B.A. in Media Studies and a course concentration in American politics and constitutional structure, for which she earned the Burgess Prize for Politics. Alas, the West Coast wasn’t “home,” although in the dead of a New England winter, she’s willing to reconsider.
In her spare time, Kate is a renegade cook, mother, reader of Eastern philosophy, and intrepid do-it-yourself rescuer of her family’s 19th century home in Wentworth, New Hampshire.