Rasky Baerlein was founded in 1997 by Larry Rasky, Joe Baerlein, and Ann Carter. They are now a major public affairs firms in the U.S. with offices in Boston and Washington DC. They currently have about 55 employees.
Early in 2014 they merged with Prism Public Affairs, a Washington DC strategic communications and public affairs firm with a great reputation. They are highly experienced in fields covering business, government, journalism, law, and media. Larry Rasky is the CEO and Chairman, Joe Baerlein is the President, Principals are Ann Carter, Amanda Deaver, Jonathan Karush, and Rex Granum. From their inception, they had a plan to gather really smart people with backgrounds in law, the media, government, and business. Using those talents and experience they set out to create and execute public affairs campaigns and strategic communications obtaining results for their clients.
Merging with Prism was a no-brainer since Prism is known for their issue-driven, smart communications benefiting and protecting their client’s reputations. Prism’s goals and history fit right in step with Rasky Baerlein’s ideas.
The range of services they offer clients includes, public affairs, ballot initiative management, government relations, crisis and litigation communications, public relations, public policy communications, advocacy strategies, and digital efforts.
Some of their clients include MooBella, Catholic Charities, Museum of Science, U.S. Mortgage Insurers, Boston Red Sox, Mediacom, Total Mobile, NRG Home Solar, and Boston Medical.
They choose to remain fairly small because it allows their teams to work closely with the clients, including top-level management at Rasky Baerlein. They like that dynamic. Over the years they have worked for a wide-range of clients and provided many services. This allowed their team members to garner and use their experience for corporations, trade associations, non-profits, individuals, educational institutions, coalitions, and foreign governments.
Since 2009 the firm has amped up their paid lobbying efforts. Prior to that time, they spent almost nothing, but beginning in 2009 moving forward, they have spent a minimum of $600K and some years nearly double that amount.
One of the biggest factors in that amount is in the Oil and Gas industry for a client, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA. Other areas where they have spent lobbying dollars include healthcare, hospitals, electronics, and telecom sectors.
In 2014, they facilitated campaign contributions from individual for just over $200K, primarily donating to Democratic candidates and causes. The largest contribution is to Ed Markey’s campaign, which makes sense – prior to forming the firm, Rasky was an aide to Senator Markey.
At various times, he has also worked on campaigns for Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Jimmy Carter. Various other members of the team have strong political connections and pedigrees.
