Fractional Communications Leadership
Senior communications leadership for the utilities too small to hire it.
Twenty years inside Fortune 100 utilities — crisis command, message architecture, executive counsel — sized for an organization that has no communications department. One to three days a month.
Every utility has a worst day.
A main breaks. A line goes down in an ice storm. A rate increase reaches the newspaper before it reaches the members. A council meeting turns, and somebody films it.
A large utility has a department for that day — a director, a media team, a plan that was rehearsed in the spring. You have a general manager, an operations superintendent, and a board that would like to know what you are going to say by five o’clock.
I am the person you retain before that day, and the person you call on it.
The rest of the year, I do the quieter work that makes that day survivable: the messaging that holds together across your website, your bill inserts and your annual meeting; the rate case narrative that starts before the filing; the plan your team can actually run at two in the morning.
Who I work with
Organizations that need the judgment, not the headcount.
Municipal utilities
Electric, gas, water and wastewater systems run by a city or town, answering to a council and to the people who live on the same streets as your crews.
Cooperatives
Electric and telephone co‑ops accountable to a member‑elected board, where communications and member relations are the same job.
Local government
Small municipalities, authorities and joint agencies carrying public‑facing risk without a communications director to carry it with them.
What is probably true right now
You already know where the gaps are.
- Your messaging drifts across the website, the bill insert, the newsletter and social media — because four different people write it and none of them were given a standard.
- Regulatory and rate communications are reactive. You answer when asked instead of setting the terms before anyone thinks to ask.
- Your GM and your board know more about this industry than any reporter covering it, and not one of them has ever been quoted.
- You have built something worth talking about — a resiliency project, a new rate structure, a broadband build — and almost nobody outside the building knows it happened.
- You have no crisis plan. Or you have one, in a binder, written by someone who has since retired.
- Everyone is working hard, and no one can say in a single sentence what the organization is trying to communicate this year.
How the work runs
Four steps, in order.
Most engagements begin with the first two and continue into the second two. You will know after the assessment whether it is worth going further — and so will I.
Audit what you have
Every channel, tool and workflow. Brand voice and message consistency across each touchpoint. Interviews with the people who actually send things. You get a written audit with prioritized recommendations — useful on its own, whatever you do next.
Clarify the message and the year
Core messaging refined for clarity and consistency. Audiences defined and messaging tailored to each. A communications plan for the year ahead with real priorities and measurable objectives.
Start with what is urgent
The highest‑priority needs first, for immediate momentum. Messaging frameworks, campaigns and content built and deployed. Processes streamlined so your team can carry them without me.
Stay available
Ongoing counsel to leadership. A trusted voice during launches, organizational change and crises. Regular reviews, and steady development of your internal capability over time.
How to engage me
Three shapes. Say which one sounds right.
Monthly retainer
Embedded communications leadership on a continuing basis, typically one to three days a month. The most common arrangement, and the one that compounds.
Defined project
A communications audit, a crisis plan, a rate case narrative, a messaging architecture. Fixed scope, fixed fee, clear end date.
On‑call crisis support
A standing retainer that guarantees you can reach me on the worst day — with a plan already written and a person who already knows your system.
I will tell you in the first conversation which of these fits your situation and your budget. If none of them does, I will say so.
Why me
The scale was large. The discipline transfers exactly.
I spent twenty years building and running communications inside investor‑owned utilities — the kind with a department, a budget and a federal audience. The instincts that come from that do not need a Fortune 100 to be useful. They need someone in the room who has done it before.
- Ran federal crisis communications through Hurricanes Helene and Milton, turning live damage and restoration data into executive‑level updates for a White House audience.
- Designed an enterprise message‑mapping system that aligned communications across every function — still in use today.
- Led communications for a multi‑utility clean energy coalition spanning six states, recognized internally as a model for alignment.
- Placed coverage in Reuters, Utility Dive, E&E News by Politico and Power Engineering.