Howard Fencl serves of counsel to Hennes Communications, one of the few firms in the U.S. focused exclusively on crisis communications and crisis management. Fencl served more than 11 years on the Hennes Communications staff as vice president.
Fencl specializes in crisis communications, crisis management, issues management, media relations and media training. His crisis experience includes helping clients deal with accusations of criminal behavior, intellectual property disputes, regulatory scrutiny, labor issues, sudden leadership changes, product recalls and other high-stakes reputation issues.
Hennes Communications counts among its current and former clients such companies as Akron General Health System, APM Terminals, Carpenter Technology Corporation, Communicare Health Services, Cuyahoga Community College, Evonik, Forest City Enterprises, The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, Hospice of the Western Reserve, Interlake Steamship Company , KeyBank, Lake Health, Lubrizol, Materion Corporation, the MetroHealth System, NASA, Oberlin College, Positively Cleveland, Riverside Companies, SeaStreak, Westfield Insurance, and many of Northeast Ohio’s leading law firms.
Prior to joining Hennes Communications, Fencl served as assistant news director at Cleveland’s NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV (a Gannett/TEGNA station). He also worked at Edward Howard & Co. (now Fahlgren Mortine), serving a diverse client base including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Rubbermaid, Ben Venue Laboratories, the Cleveland Clinic and the Greater Cleveland Growth Association (now the Greater Cleveland Partnership). He has written speeches for numerous executives, including former Congressman Dennis Eckart and Pro Football Hall of Famer Gayle Sayers. In the 1990s, he worked as general manager for Multiverse, one of the pioneer Internet service providers in Northeast Ohio. Fencl was pivotal in creating and launching the city of Cleveland’s first presence on the World Wide Web in late 1994 in his capacity as director of communications for The New Cleveland Campaign. And, he was a television news producer and executive producer for a dozen years, working at WKYC-TV and WEWS-TV in Cleveland and WBNS-TV in Columbus.
As assistant news director at WKYC, Howard was responsible for crafting the news department’s pioneering cross- platform strategic content delivery plan, successfully launching one of the first social media sites for a Gannett-owned television station in 2007. The plan was subsequently adopted by many of Gannett’s 22 television properties. He won both the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi award and a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for his role in leading WKYC’s breaking news coverage of the Chardon, Ohio, school shootings in 2012.
Fencl graduated as valedictorian from Denison University, and received his M.A. at Hiram College. He is immediate past president of the Cleveland Association of Phi Beta Kappa and served on the boards of the Press Club of Cleveland and Near West Theatre. He earned the accreditation of the Public Relations Society of America.