Eduflack is written by Patrick Riccards. After cutting his teeth as a Capitol Hill staffer, Patrick has spent the past decade advising government entities, non-profits, membership organizations, and companies on effective education marketing and communications.

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With nearly 15 years of strategic communications experience, Patrick Riccards provides a wide range of public affairs, marketing, media relations, editorial, and strategic planning services. Specializing in integrated communications initiatives and public affairs, he provides companies, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations with the improved message, brand, and public interest they seek. His work as a senior advisor with the National Reading Panel and the U.S. Department of Education’s Partnership for Reading makes him one of the top education communications executives in the nation.

Patrick currently serves as President and Chief Strategist for Exemplar Strategic Communications (www.exemplarpr.com), a consulting company focusing on providing research-based communications solutions in the education space.

Previously, he served as Senior Vice President and director of the K-16 education communications practice for Lipman Hearne, Inc., the nation’s premier marketing communications company serving the not-for-profit sector. He also has held positions as Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Positioning for a global education company and as Vice President and Practice Group Director for Widmeyer Communications, one of Washington, DC’s largest independent public affairs agencies.

At Widmeyer, Patrick led the agency’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) efforts, with an emphasis on literacy, educational research, and accountability.

As senior counsel to the National Reading Panel (NRP) from 1998 through 2001, he helped shepherd the development of the research cornerstone of NCLB’s reading initiative. With the NRP, Patrick oversaw all media relations, editorial projects, relationship and partnership development, and public events for the congressionally mandated panel. In addition to masterminding the Panel’s national town hall meeting tour and conducting all qualitative research over the Panel’s two-year term, he led the development of the Panel’s Summary Report, Report of the Subgroups, and Video Report.

From 2002 through 2005, Patrick served as project director for the Partnership for Reading, a federal inter-agency initiative designed to raise public awareness for scientifically-based reading instruction under NCLB. In addition to securing millions of dollars of earned media focused on scientifically based reading research, he also developed and managed the Partnership’s Advisory Group, a national board of education organizations, business organizations, and government agencies.

Since 2000, he has served as public affairs advisor to Dr. G. Reid Lyon, the primary architect of Reading First and the research foundations of NCLB.

Earlier in his career, Patrick held senior communications positions on Capitol Hill, running media offices for U.S. Senators Robert C. Byrd (WV) and Bill Bradley (NJ) and U.S. Representative John Olver (MA). He also aided Senator Byrd and Congressman Olver with their work on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, respectively.

Patrick has been recognized by PRWeek and PR News magazines as one of the top professionals in his field, and his integrated communications campaigns have been honored by the International Association of Business Communicators, Public Relations Society of America, and Philips Business Information, among others.

He is a contributing author of Why Kids Can’t Read: Challenging the Status Quo in Education, published in 2006 by Rowman Littlefield Education and edited by Reid Lyon and Phyllis Blaunstein. A Virginia Press Association Award-winning columnist, his ghost-written work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, and Education Week, among others.

Patrick earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, with a double major in Government and Rhetoric and Communication Studies.

All of the entries on Eduflack are the opinion of the author.