Pac/West’s crisis management strategies begin far before you ever need them, so when a crisis occurs you will be ready. With decades of experience under its belt, our team will assist you with planning, crisis coping strategies, and a post crisis plan to implement once the smoke has cleared. The most challenging part of managing a crisis is knowing how to react with the right messages and at the appropriate time. Our experienced crisis communications team examines all the dimensions of a crisis and then provides meaningful, strategic advice that helps organizations and individuals avoid those negative defining moments that can linger for a career. Below are a few examples of our crisis management work:
Pac/West was retained by a higher education institution to help navigate the public affairs challenges with students, faculty, alumni, and donors regarding a former student that was in a mental health crisis, threatening students, faculty, and herself with possible injury based on accusations of a sexual assault, discrimination, and administration inaction. We focused on the facts, helped identify key audiences, developed talking points and suggested communication venues to defuse the misplaced narrative and redirect the discussion to addressing the mental needs of the former student. We continue to be called upon by this institution as similar situations arise.
Over the years, Pac/West has assisted a publicly traded mining company with several public relations and crisis communications issues. For example, the company required our expertise when they had a significant underground incident at one of their mines. Within a day, Pac/West staff arrived on-site and acted as the contact for the news media, fielding questions from local, regional, and national reporters and working with the appropriate staff to answer those questions. Once the immediate situation was handled, we developed and implemented a public affairs program, which included public town hall meetings, television and radio advertising, public awareness, and connecting with local and state officials.
Pac/West’s expertise was also called upon to assist an energy company that was drawn into a significant accident that destroyed private residences. While not directly involved, due to a legacy well that was no longer in production, nonetheless, they were the focus of the media. To make things worse, the state’s energy industry was engaged in a regulatory and potential ballot initiative fight over the location and management of new developments. Pac/West assisted with the initial response and message delivery by assisting with preparation of talking points and making sure critical audiences were recipients of key information. We also worked with the industry to frame this isolated accident in the larger public discussion regarding regulation.
After a tragic shooting at a community college, Pac/West sprang to action immediately on behalf of our client, an area hospital. In this challenging time, Pac/West deployed several senior team members who helped coach hospital administrators to communicate with the media and the public. We assisted with press conferences and developing written materials the day of and following the tragedy. We helped manage social media as a quick channel to update stakeholders, especially employees. We helped our client navigate their response, including when to correct misinformation. Pac/West even worked with victims by helping manage the barrage of media inquiries, advising them on whether and how to respond.
Finally, several members of the Pac/West team have been trained and certified under FEMA’s Incident Command System as Public Information Officers and Liaison Officers. They have participated in disaster and incident drills to keep their crisis communication skills sharp.
