Three of the newer local public relations firms are owned by practitioners who have actually been in the field for quite a while, but they have decided to combine their communication knowledge with entrepreneurial ambition. Michelle M. Lantz, APR, president of Lantz Communications, has been a professional communicator for 15 years; Gary Naeyaert, president of the Naeyaert Advocacy Group LLC, has been in the business since 1983; and Stephen Serkaian, owner and president of Serkaian Communications, Inc., has been on the political scene for almost 30 years.

Lantz Communications

Michelle Lantz believes strongly enough in professional associations that she has served at the local, regional and national levels of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and has earned her accreditation for public relations (APR).

“When you move into the level of accreditation, you have to prove you can go through public relations strategy,” she explained. “The accreditation guarantees your clients that you’ve become a strategist as opposed to a tactical person, so that’s why it’s so important to our profession.”

Having served as president for the local chapter, Lantz is currently the secretary for the district board, a national assembly delegate, and was a member of the national nominating committee.

Lantz started her career at the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce before going to two other local organizations. She has also taught at Lansing Community College since 1999, and founded Lantz Communications four years ago.

“I actually had a client before I had a company,” she stated. “A former boss took a new position and inherited a PR and marketing department that needed to be more strategically run. So she asked if I would take on the project with her, helping to mold what it should look like. But I was still working. I had gone down to part time because I had had my second baby, but I started realizing that it was just becoming too intense to do both, so I decided to start consulting full time. It was really nice to have that major client for start-up.”

Now she is helping another new business.

“It’s a smoking cessation clinic,” said Lantz. “It’s a start-up business where I’ve helped it to go from the Lansing market to the Saginaw market, so I assisted with the PR launch into a new market.”

But networking within PRSA has also helped. “I was contacted by another APR in the Grand Rapids area, and she has a client with a location here in Lansing,” Lantz explained. “They have an event coming up that they want media relations for. She asked me to do that project with her in this market, so we often work with other professionals to get a project done, either based on geography or expertise in a certain industry or market. There is so much value in connecting with the other professionals. For me, it’s just been the right way to go for career opportunities.”

Naeyaert Advocacy Group

When Gary Naeyaert decided, once again, to start his own company in February 2005, he wanted to keep it small.

“You’re talking to him,” he replied when asked about his staff. “You can’t get much smaller than that.”

In addition to working for state government, associations and other agencies, Naeyaert co-founded Creative Media, an advertising and public relations firm, in 1986 and stayed with it until 1997.

“We had seven staff,” he explained. “We were larger and full service. I spent more time on the business of the business than I did on the advertising and public relations. When I started my own company again, I said I would keep it small and keep my focus on the lobbying and public relations, as opposed to running the business.”

Not many companies combine those two specialties.

“Most firms do one discipline or the other,” he said. “I happened to combine them. I tend to get fewer clients, smaller clients and clients who can’t afford to hire both a lobbying firm and a public relations firm. My work in lobbying is to get legislation passed, and my other half is to represent those clients in public relations. For example, the hornet’s nest with the Ingham County Road Commission a year ago over [the expansion of] Okemos Road, that was public relations. I represent the [Michigan] Ignition Interlock Providers Association, advocating for more expanded ignition interlock placements for drunk drivers. I also do both lobbying and PR for Dads of Michigan.

“It’s the same skill sets,” he continued. “It’s a matter of being a persuasive communicator. The only difference is, which issue are you representing which day? Which audience, a newspaper editor or an elected official? The subtle difference is PR spokesmen need to be more provocative to make sure their clients’ viewpoints are covered by the media, and a lobbyist tends not to provoke. Your style of negotiating within the media is more attention getting than what you might do in the halls of the Capitol. Other than that, it’s a pretty reasonable marriage of professions.”

Serkaian Communications

Serkaian Communications is the relative newcomer on the block, opening just under a year ago, but Stephen Serkaian has been in the field since he graduated from college in 1978.

“I was going to pursue a course in broadcast journalism, then I caught the political bug two weeks before I graduated, becoming the press secretary for a congressional candidate in the central Michigan area,” Serkaian explained. “But he lost the August primary, so I put a call into Carl Levin’s office. He was then a former Detroit city council member and had just survived a multiple candidate primary for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. That was against an incumbent, and he beat him. I was in the right place at the right time, and was offered a position as an assistant press secretary in his Washington, DC office, which I accepted, and lived and worked there for seven years.”

Serkaian returned to Michigan to serve in the Blanchard Administration, then as press secretary for two speakers of the House, and as the director of the House Democratic Press Office. After that he partnered with Robert Kolt on Kolt & Serkaian Communications for 13 years, before opening his own business in January 2005.

“We provide services including public relations, media relations, news placement, advertising production and placement, media and crisis communications training, special event planning, and advocacy video production,” he explained. “We handle the news media relations for the candidates. We offer a broad range of communications services to a variety of public and private sector clients, including government agencies and industry associations, labor unions, and local and statewide political campaigns.”

Serkaian is also currently handling the statewide ballot referendum, Proposal 3, encouraging voters to vote “no” to keep mourning doves protected, and his regular clients include the Michigan Petroleum Association, NECA-IBEW Local 665 Labor Management Committee, and the Lansing School District. He has also produced 13 consecutive State of the City addresses for three Lansing mayors and designed the communications campaign for “Lansing Works! Keep GM!”  which won PRSA’s Award of Excellence in 1999.

“I’ve pursued a career in public relations and political consulting for nearly 30 years, so Serkaian Communications is simply an extension of what I’ve passionately pursued in my career,” he noted.

In addition to Lantz, Naeyaert and Serkaian, other Lansing-area public relations professionals that have launched their own firms in the past five years are Roger Martin, APR and David Waymire of Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications, Carrie Rathbun Hawks, APR of Rathbun Public Relations, Maura Reardon Campbell, APR of M3 Strategies, Bob Robinson of Robert Anthony Marketing, John Truscott of The John Truscott Group, Amy Hagerstrom of Hagerstrom Consulting, and Tiffany Dowling of Motion, Marketing & Media.