Founder Curtis Wilkerson | Area served United States | |
Industry Public Relations/Consulting Founded 2007; 10 years ago (2007) Headquarters Charleston, West Virginia, U.S.A Website www.orion-strategies.com | ||
Orion Strategies (Orion Strategies LLC) is a strategic communications and public relations firm. The company has offices in Charleston, West Virginia and Buckhannon, West Virginia, and operates throughout the Eastern United States.
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History
Orion Strategies was founded in 2007 by Curtis Wilkerson and is based in Charleston, West Virginia. In mid-2008 the company opened a second office in Buckhannon, West Virginia, in order to service that market and its expanding energy sector of North Central West Virginia . In late 2012 Orion Strategies moved into a new office on Capitol Street in downtown Charleston, West Virginia.
Business overview
Orion Strategies offers public relations and political consulting services to its clients. In addition to PR and political consulting, Orion Strategies also offers issue advocacy, media relations, graphic design, direct mail, opinion polling and research.
National Recognition
National Blog FiveThirtyEight, run by Nate Silver, gave Orion Strategies a B− ranking, the highest of any West Virginian organization, in its review of pollsters in the USA.
Recognition in the media
Founder and spokesman Curtis Wilkerson has been quoted and used as a background source by the Washington Post, CNN, Salon, Huffington Post, the Washington Times and West Virginian publications including the Charleston Gazette-Mail, State Journal, Intermountain, The Intelligencer & Wheeling News Register, Wheeling News-Register, and West Virginia MetroNews.
During West Virginia’s 2010 senate election Orion Strategies produced a poll that gained national recognition. The firm predicted a 10-point victory in 2010 for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Manchin while numerous other statewide polls called for either a Manchin loss or narrow margin of victory. The Orion poll proved to be the most predictive measurement of the race as Senator Joe Manchin went on to win the election with 60.6% of the vote.
Criticisms
Orion’s critics have called Orion Strategies partisan. Real Clear Politics gave the firm a “D” indication, showing an alignment with the Democratic Party. Opponents Orion’s clients have emphasized this claim when addressing Orion Strategies in the media.
In 2011, Politico Morning Tech spoke of Orion being an instrument of AT&T during the telecommunication firm’s attempted merger with T-Mobile. Internet Innovation Alliance used Orion Strategies to get support for the merger. As a result of Orion’s involvement, the West Virginia Farm Bureau ended up writing a letter of support for the telecommunication merger. Politico questioned the validity of this support.