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Under the Radar; If You Haven't Heard of the Firm Crosby~Volmer, You're Not Alone

Kate Ackley, Roll Call

Even if you work on K Street, you probably have never heard of Crosby~Volmer International Communications. The firm, which says it had $3 million in revenues last year, has kept a low profile.

Crosby~Volmer specializes in media and grass-roots campaigns for lobbying associations and the Washington, D.C., offices of corporations. The firm works behind the scenes to get other groups, sitting Members or former government officials to endorse its clients' positions - oftentimes without those entities knowing whose side they're taking, said firm President Rob Volmer.

"You don't hear our name a lot," Volmer said. "Most of the stuff we do is through other parties."

The shop has a number of clients, including the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Electronic Industries Alliance, Sanyo and pharmaceutical and automotive companies that the firm's principals will not disclose.

And they don't have to. Unlike lobbying firms, their PR counterparts don't have to report publicly the work they do to influence legislation or policy. Efforts to include reporting by PR and grass-roots firms in lobbying reforms so far have failed.

Several competing firms say they've never even heard of Crosby~Volmer, which was founded in 1997 by Andrew Crosby, who now heads the Memphis office. (It also has outposts in San Francisco and Oklahoma City.)

But Volmer said he plans to expand the business.

Earlier this year Volmer hired Larry Farnsworth, a former deputy press secretary to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). And late last week, the shop inked a deal with Jennifer Brand, a staff member in the research and communications department of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who will join after the November elections.

Although the firm works on issues that cross party lines, it is best known for its GOP contacts. (The firm also does work for Capital Research Center, a conservative group that tracks liberal causes.)

At a time when Democrats have a shot at taking control of the House and possibly the Senate, Volmer said he is looking to hire people with Democratic contacts.

"If I had my druthers, I would hire a Democrat or two," he said recently. "It is so difficult right now to talk any Democrats into leaving the Hill until they know what is going to happen and what they're going to be worth come November."

One of Volmer's most loyal clients is David Rehr, who hired Crosby~Volmer when he led the beer wholesalers' group. When Rehr took over the National Association of Broadcasters last December, he brought Volmer and his firm on as consultants.

When Volmer first pitched Rehr at the beer group, Volmer and his team made up beer bottles with the firm's name on the label. It read, "Fresh ideas brewed daily." They also mounted a PowerPoint presentation.

"As soon as I saw the first slide, I said, 'He gets it,'" Rehr recalled.

Rehr said the Volmer team is helping him to position the NAB brand to "increase its influence exponentially." And it's the little details that impress him, Rehr said.

In an interview in his office, Rehr held out a NAB media folder with a large drawing of the building and the association's logo. "This looks like 1968," he said. Volmer and his team designed new folders with an updated look.

"This is why you have consultants," Rehr said holding up folders with a new logo. "If you have a great PR and lobbying campaign, but you're using folders that look like they're from the 1960s, people aren't going to buy that it's an industry of the future."

Rehr said Volmer also personally has helped him transition from being the beer guy on Capitol Hill to representing the broadcasting industry to Congress. Shortly after Rehr had taken over the broadcasters group, he said he and Volmer happened to end up taking the same flight to Memphis, Tenn. Volmer suggested they take the opportunity to talk strategy for the NAB.

"I like to have consultants who go beyond what the contract says," Rehr said. One area Volmer said he focuses on is getting Members of Congress, former government officials and think tanks to champion his client's causes, even if it's done unwittingly.

"Without naming a particular issue, but [take] someone like a Tom Foley," Volmer said, referring to the former Democratic Speaker from Washington state. "I know Tom is for a particular issue, and let's say I know my client is really for that same particular issue, but [I also know] that Tom Foley would not talk to my client or would not be an advocate for this issue if my client came and approached him directly.

"Then I would identify a neutral party in the middle who could approach Tom on the issue, a middle person, whoever might be a trusted adviser to that person." It's a behind-the-scenes approach that Volmer said he calls "the cascade of influence."

Sometimes, though, the strategy is another beer gimmick.

Michelle Lehman, vice president of public affairs for the NBWA, which still retains Crosby~Volmer, said when the association earlier this year was urging Senators to approve a cloture motion to allow a vote on the estate tax issue, Farnsworth came up with a beer-bottle message.

The Speaker's former press aide suggested sending each Senate office, and reporters who cover the issue, a bottle of Blue Moon beer with the attached message: "Once in a blue moon, Democrats and Republicans have the opportunity to do something together for America's family owned businesses."

The measure failed, but Lehman said the Blue Moon stunt helped raise the profile of beer wholesalers' stake in the issue.

"It really did garner the attention we needed," she said. "What a lot of people don't realize is it is not unusual for our members to have inherited their business, and the death tax is extremely harmful to some of them."

Farnsworth, who is 31, said, "People are going to be hearing a lot about Crosby~Volmer in the future."

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2008-05-17 21:17:16

© 2008 Crosby~Volmer International Communications