WASHINGTON, DC -- Four veteran Washington D.C. communicators today launched a new strategic communications firm, HDMK, LLC.  Terry Holt, Trent Duffy, Jim Morrell and Chad Kolton have teamed up to provide clients with comprehensive communications strategies geared toward running effective message campaigns.  The four founders collectively possess more than five decades of experience in working on high profile public policy battles from the White House, Capitol Hill and national political campaigns

“We all have backgrounds in communications, policy and politics, but we also bring different strengths to the table.  With HDMK, we are pulling our skills together to provide our clients with everything needed to organize and execute a winning message campaign,” said Chad Kolton, partner in HDMK and a former Director of Public Affairs for both the Director of National Intelligence and FEMA.

HDMK begins with a roster of more than a dozen clients including America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the Real Estate Roundtable.  The firm is actively involved in a number of public policy issue areas including health care, finance, real estate, and homeland security.

“At HDMK, we’re not content just getting our clients mentioned in stories, we want to help clients become active participants in the events that are shaping stories.  Effective communication is about more than just commenting on the process, it demands strategies and tactics that will shape the process itself.  That is where our experience lies, and that is what we’re focused on doing for our clients,” said Kolton.

The firm offers an array of communications services, including: public affairs strategies, management of coalition efforts and message campaigns, crisis communications and crisis prevention, media relations, media training, and speech and editorial writing.

“We have each run successful communications practices on our own, and HDMK will be an extension of those enterprises.  This firm not only allows us to better serve our existing clients, it provides us an opportunity to reach out to new ones,” said Kolton.

More information about HDMK can be found on their website, www.hdmk.org.