Orion Strategies LLC is a strategic communications firm that provides

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

lobbying Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by va ...

and

advocacy Advocacy is an Action (philosophy), activity by an individual or advocacy group, group that aims to influence decision making, decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to infl ...

. The firm also has a research division that conducts

polling Poll, polled, or polling may refer to: Forms of voting and counting * Poll, a formal election ** Election verification exit poll, a survey taken to verify election counts ** Polling, voting to make decisions or determine opinions ** Polling pla ...

and

focus groups A focus group is a group interview involving a small number (sometimes up to ten) of demographically predefined participants. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are used in market research ...

and a creative division for video,

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

and digital.

History

Orion Strategies was founded in 2007 by Curtis Wilkerson. The company has locations in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

;

Harrisburg, PA Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...

;

Columbus, OH Columbus (, ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Ohio, most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 United States census, 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the List of United States ...

;

Charleston, WV Charleston () is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Kanawha County and is at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha rivers. The population was 48,864 at the 2020 census and estima ...

; Buckhannon, WV; and

Martinsburg, WV Martinsburg is a city in Berkeley County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. The population was 18,773 at the 2020 census, making Martinsburg the largest city in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and the sixth-most populo ...

Activities

Orion Strategies provides

strategic communication Strategic communication is the purposeful use of communication by an organization to reach a specific goal. Organizations like governments, corporations, Non-governmental organization, NGOs and Military, militaries seeking to communicate a concep ...

services to its clients. This includes

, bipartisan federal and state

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from volunteers at the local level to imp ...

media relations Media relations involves working with media for the purpose of informing the public of an organization's mission, policies and practices in a positive, consistent and credible manner. It can also entail developing symbiotic relationships with medi ...

creative services Creative services are a subsector of the creative industries, a part of the economy that creates wealth by offering creativity for hire to other businesses. Creative Services also means a department within a company that does creative work such a ...

opinion polling An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of que ...

and

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

Polling

Orion has carried out non-partisan polling for a number of organizations including the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and news organizations including ''

The State Journal The State Journal may refer to: Newspapers * ''The State Journal'' (Kentucky) * ''The State Journal'' (West Virginia) * ''The State Journal-Register'' (Illinois) Similarly named * ''Idaho State Journal'' * ''Lansing State Journal'' (Michigan ...

''. ''

FiveThirtyEight ''FiveThirtyEight'', also rendered as ''538'', was an American website that focused on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which took its name from the number of electors in the U ...

'' gave Orion Strategies a B− ranking in its review of

pollsters An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a survey (human research), human research survey of public opinion from a particular sampling (statistics), sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...

in the USA.

Natural gas industry

Orion has conducted a significant amount of work for the

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

industry. In 2018 it produced a series of reports arguing in favor of

fracking Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, fracing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure inje ...

. In 2021, Orion took credit for the passage of West Virginia's Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, a law it advanced on behalf of the

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) is an American trade association, founded in 1902 as the National Petroleum Association. It became the National Petroleum Refiners Association in 1961, the National Petrochemical & Refiners As ...

, that created

felony A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "''félonie''") to describe an offense that r ...

penalties for protests targeting oil and gas facilities and was described by its sponsor John Kelly as having been "requested by the natural gas industry".

Criticisms

In 2011, ''

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...

'' Morning Tech spoke of Orion being an instrument of

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

during the

telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

firm's attempted merger with

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand of telecommunications by Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telec ...

. ''Politico'' questioned the validity of this support.

References

External links

{{cite web , url=http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/on-the-new-west-virginia-polls/article/131987, title= On the new West Virginia polls , date=14 October 2010 , website= Washington Examiner , access-date=22 August 2015 Public opinion research companies in the United States Public relations companies in West Virginia Buckhannon, West Virginia