by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
CSX spokesperson Adam Hollingsworth has his name in the papers again, but this time he’s happy to put it there.
As vice president of corporate communications and public affairs, Hollingsworth has spent 2004 trying to put the best face on stories about layoffs, crossing fatalities and attorney general inquiries. Now setting off to open his own public affairs consulting firm, he says nine years at the railroad, and extensive work in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., have prepared him for just about every headline that might come his way.
More a lobbying firm than a public relations shop, Hollingsworth’s Capstone Company will still make heavy use of the media. Hollingsworth wants to get his clients’ concerns to the ears of legislators and he says the media is a vital component of a modern lobbying campaign.
“Today’s sophisticated campaigns require, not just the day-to-day lobbying, but a public relations component,” says Hollingsworth. “An effective message comes from a mix of business, government and media sources. That’s my background, managing communications initiatives with multiple components, and that’s the experience I hope to bring to bear.”
It’s a background that Hollingsworth says will help him carve out a distinct niche in a Jacksonville market crowded by public affairs specialists like the Dalton and McCormick agencies and a stocked roster of legislative flesh pressers.
Hollingsworth says Jacksonville’s widening economic landscape presents plenty of opportunity for all the public affairs specialists.
“We will compete in certain areas, but there’s enough business for all the good talent in town. We’re all finding more business in town than professionals to provide services,” he says.
With so many sources trying to get their message out, Hollingsworth says its important that lawmakers hear his message from those with the most influence.
Rural legislators might learn how an initiative affects agribusiness. Those from urban areas hear from manufacturers. It’s an approach Hollingsworth honed while working on the 1999 campaign to bring tort reform to Florida.
Hollingsworth knew the point he wanted to make: that frivolous lawsuits were pushing up costs across the state. But he also knew the message would resonate a lot louder if it came from constituents instead of a lobbyist.
“I found business owners that had suffered from unnecessary litigation and brought them to Tallahassee,” he said. “I had medical professionals talking about how the availability of silicone had dropped as a result of breast implant suits. It effectively showed how litigation with no basis in fact had become a litigation tax.”
Legislators apparently got the message. That year they passed limits on employers’ exposure to liability lawsuits and other measures to limit the economic damage caused by torts. Hollingsworth used a similar approach on behalf of CSX to convince Tallahassee to keep Orimulsion, an industrial fuel with some troubling environmental side effects, out of Florida. It’s all about knowing your audience, he says. Not just the one receiving the message, but the one delivering it as well.
“It’s the single most important element in communicating,” he says. “You have to know how they listen and what they’ll listen to. That’s how you know what will resonate with your intended audience.”