verve: in bloom

Today feels like a new chapter in my life and my career. I LOVE what I do. I love public relations, social media and crisis planning and incident management. I work with, what I think, are the best clients. I’m a lucky girl and I take my work very seriously.

I signed paperwork on the acquisition of DCS Consulting today. My long-time mentor is retiring (from PR, not from being my mentor – from that she can never retire!) and she’s trusted me to take the reigns. In terms of day-to-day work, this isn’t a huge change, I’ve been transitioning to the lead on her primary client for about 3 months. But this is a tremendous opportunity and I’m honored.

DCS Consulting will be the “crisis management” arm of my business, while Verve Northwest will be the PR, marketing and social media work. Below is a release that we sent to the wildland firefighting industry (the primary industry in which I’ve done my crisis work) and talks a little more about the business.

I’ll be revamping the DCS Consulting Web site to be focused on crisis preparedness and management, so stay tuned! I’m excited to share my adventures with you.

- Kelli

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Crisis Responder to the private firefighting industry retires

Leslie Habetler, who has provided crisis management assistance to wildland firefighting industry since 2002, has announced her retirement after 25 years of crisis response assistance for the US Army, US Forest Service and as a private consultant.

Habetler’s company Dynamic Communication Strategies (also known as DCS Consulting) will be taken over by long-time associate Kelli Matthews. Matthews has assisted Habetler on four fatality incidents in the industry and assisted in developing public relations strategies, crisis plans and websites to help companies navigate through a difficult time with their reputation intact. Matthews will retain the company name.

“Kelli Matthews has provided invaluable assistance in my response to fatality incidents such as First Strike Environmental and Grayback Forestry, as well as, GH Ranch and Diamond Fire,” said Habetler. “She is a talented communicator with the media and has a very good understanding of the industry and its challenges. I feel very confident that she will provide excellent support to the wildland firefighting companies.”

Matthews brings a decade of strategic communication experience, including managing high-level media contacts, building relationships with key stakeholders and planning for crises. She holds a master’s degree from the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.

Habetler says that making the decision to leave this important work was a difficult one. “How do you stop responding to that phone call where the person on the other end has just lost firefighters or experienced other kinds of catastrophe?” she said. “There is nothing like the feeling that you are truly helping a company get through the worst experience imaginable. I feel a deep connection to every company I have worked with and thank them for their trust in me.”

Habetler said that finding someone with Matthews’ talent and experience helped her make that difficult decision to step away.
“Not everyone can do this work. You have to care but be able to be on your game when media are swooping down on you. She can do that and much more.”

Transfer of the company should be complete by the end of July. Kelli Matthews can be reached at 541 579 5888, kelli@dcsconsulting.biz.