PR Firm Basks in Spotlight With Jordan's Inauguration

By L.A. Chung
January 13, 1992

The day after Mayor Frank Jordan's inauguration, the 22nd- floor offices of PBN Co. were quiet for the first time in a month. After overseeing Jordan's first meeting with department heads, PBN's president, Peter Necarsulmer, luxuriated in the stillness and called the event a success.An opulent orchid arrangement had arrived that morning with a note that read, ''Dear Peter, Sue, Sam, Staci, et al.: Thanks for all the hard work. It was a magnificent day! - Frank.''

Once again, the local public relations company that grabbed attention with its handling of Mikhail Gorbachev's 1990 visit to San Francisco was in the spotlight by directing the inaugural festivities which ended in a brilliant flash of indoor fireworks.

But the image-building company did more than issue press credentials and arrange special effects. Its sleek offices in the Embarcadero Three's office tower had served as a mini-City Hall from which the mayor-elect could interview and select his core staff.

Undeniably, PBN has gained access - and possibly influence - with the new administration that other companies would envy.

Putting together the inaugural - even without charge - was a smart move, said Necarsulmer's first boss, Don Solem of the public relations firm Solem & Associates. ''You're showcasing your work . . . and everyone would like to do it for the access.''

But Necarsulmer, 36, eschews any suggestions that he has an inside track to City Hall.

''I don't want to be viewed as a City Hall insider - I'd rather be viewed as an insider with the Russian Federation,'' he said.

'Open and accessible'

Hadley Roff, a former PBN vice president who has become Jordan's chief of staff, said the administration would be ''open and accessible'' to everyone.

''This a small city, and it's not a question of access,'' said Roff, who became friends with Necarsulmer when they worked together on the welcome-home parade for the 49ers after the 1982 Super Bowl.

''Frank knows a lot of people from his years in the police force and I in my jobs,'' Roff said. ''There's a lot of people who we count as friends.''

When PBN took on the inaugural festivities December 11, it turned over nearly its entire office space to Jordan for his mayoral transition office.

PBN added 12 telephone lines and six computers to augment the 20 computers already in place. Supporters experienced in the ways of City Hall, ranging from to ex-Deputy Mayor Rotea Gilford to real estate lobbyist Barbara Kolesar, who was later appointed as the mayor's liaison to the Board of Supervisors, moved in to assist the new mayor.

And so, far from the homespun neighborhoods that Frank Jordan's campaign exuberantly embraced, far from the fraying splendor of City Hall, the new administration took shape in a steel and glass downtown office tower.

From PBN's offices, where the reception area offers views of Coit Tower, Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge, Roff met with job applicants and built Jordan's team.

Days before the inauguration

Two days before the inauguration, the reception area was packed with members of the city's Republican Party, local newspaper reporters and a job-seeker for the mayor's press secretary position.

Gay political leader Jean Harris, who would later become Jordan's neighborhood liaison, was deep in conversation with Roff in an office down the hall. In the large conference room, members of Bill Graham Presents were going over plans for the special effects at the inaugural party. PBN executive vice president Sue Thurman was overseeing protocol and seat assignments for the Davies Hall ceremony. In another office, Kent Sims, later named mayor's economic development officer, met with Chamber of Commerce Vice President Jim Lazarus.

And Jordan chatted with Necarsulmer.

'A lot of goosebumps'

''In terms of the policy stuff, it's not us - it's all Hadley and Frank,'' Necarsulmer said. He said his role on the inauguration speech, written by Roff, was fine- tuning the wording.

As inauguration director, Necarsulmer said his primary goal was to provide a dignified event that prompted ''a lot of goosebumps.''

His one mistake was early on, when Jordan supporters loudly denounced plans for a $ 1,000-a-plate dinner - intended to defray inauguration costs - as too ostentatious for Citizen Frank. Jordan returned from Hawaii and promptly vetoed it.

Now that the inauguration is past, even supervisors who had supported Agnos expressed little concern about the public relations firm's role in the transition.

''If they have a leg up on some forms of business opportunity, that is OK,'' said Supervisor Carole Migden. ''Certainly they have access, and they can't help but have access. But whether it is extraordinary or appropriate, or that we should be worried about it is too early to know.''

PBN'S record

PBN has been able to convert a series of plum opportunities into business success. It was credited with Charlotte Mailliard Swig for salvaging the foundering 50th anniversary party for the Golden Gate Bridge. But PBN really shot into view when an old colleague and Bush administration assistant, Sig Rogich, asked the firm to provide assistance with the Gorbachev visit in 1990.

By last April, PBN had opened the only independent public relations office in Moscow, handling publicity for high-level East-West meetings. Several of its clients are oil companies, including British Petroleum Co. After BP's 1990 oil spill off Huntington Beach, PBN basked in press analyses that client BP had successfully handled the public relations aspect of the spill, while Exxon had stumbled with the Valdez spill.