Monday, September 08, 2008

San Antonio toll road backer joins Bracewell & Giuliani

Krier's New Post An Example of an Emerging Field

Will help companies deal with complexities of government

September 8, 2008

By Jim Forsyth
KQXT-FM
Copyright 2008

150 years ago, businesses began hiring lobbyists to get things from government. Today, government has become so complex and regulations have gotten so challenging, that a new type of professional has emerged, the skilled 'navigator' who helps businesses deal with the increasingly complex mix of governments and regulations, 1200 WOAI news reports.

That's the role that long time Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President Joe Krier will play as head of the Public Issues Management Group of the powerhouse law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.

"A lot of what companies do are not unlike political campaigns, when it comes to getting where they want to go," Krier said.

Krier, who is an attorney who once was associated with Bracewell and Giuliani's predecessor firm, will not be practicing law, and he will not be a lobbyist. He will be playing a new and still evolving role, by working with businesses to help them protect their reputations, their assets, and their focus as they face an ever growing minefield of regulations and an even faster growing array of agencies, authorities, and quasi-governmental agencies, especially at a time when local, county, state and federal agencies, along with the new breed of quasi-governmental bodies and entities like Regional Mobility Authorities, wield more and more influence and often conflict with one another.

"These are major businesses that have issues that cross government and business and public lines," he said.

Examples of Public Issues Management include helping businesses which rely on military contracts deal with the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, and working with businesses which rely on transportation to navigate the increasingly complicated debate over toll roads, without the businesses becoming identified with one issue or point of view.

"I've spent the last twenty years at the intersection of business and government," Krier said. "I have been giving businesses and CEOs what I thing was thoughtful advice. I now have an opportunity to provide that type of advice to major companies that have issues that cross these same lines, and to do it in partnership with one of this country's greatest law firms."

Krier says a lot of companies in this area are dealing with business issues that have a governmental component, and businesses which are in the public eye.

"We think these businesses could benefit from the kind of thoughtful advice and counsel that I can provide as to how you manage that issue to achieve your business goal, and to do it as part of a larger team, to use their own lobbying people and public relations people in a more useful way."

He says he will fashion 'strategic campaigns' similar to campaigns which resulted in the approval of the Alamodome and the AT&T Center.

Krier joked that the rumors that his wife, former County Judge and current USAA Vice President Cyndi Krier, told him to get off the couch and get back to work are untrue.

"Doing nothing and trying to do it very well for the last six months was something I wasn't very good at," he said.

© 2008 KQXT-FM:www.q1019.com

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