Coyne PR was formed 17 years ago with one person, yours truly, coming straight out of college armed with no experience and a couple of new suits that I received as graduation gifts. My story begins long before Disney Parks, Goodyear, Siemens, Shell Oil or Hard Rock International.
 
Back during the mid 80’s while in high school, I grew up one of five sharing a room with my four brothers within a Cape Cod home in New Jersey. Working hard was what we did in the Coyne household. My father worked two jobs to make ends meet so if you wanted some spending money you needed to earn your own way.   
 
My work experience feels a bit like a Steve Miller song, I was a butcher, landscaper, forklift driver, painter, house cleaner, building engineer, salesperson, paperboy, and gas station attendant, all before leaving high school. These were the jobs that taught me that I needed more; I needed to find a job that would not feel like work.
 
My passion in school was always sports; I was captain of both my high school and college championship football teams. One of the most powerful lessons I learned from these great experiences is that there is no better way to lead than by example. If you don’t walk your talk it’s all over from a credibility standpoint (and running an agency is no different).  
 
College is where I was introduced to public relations. I majored in communications with a public relations concentration at Marist College. PR immediately drew me in; I never knew it existed. Advertising stretches your creativity, business thrives on strategy and media could change the way the world viewed any topic; at the cross section was public relations. The most amazing thing to me about public relations was that everyone needed it; especially if you wanted to win elections, launch products, or drive consumer confidence.
 
My first public relations project was born from my need to go on spring break with my friends. I was paid $300 to write and illustrate a brochure for a school. I still have it framed in my office because it proved I could make money doing something I really enjoyed; outside of football (which I was sure I could not; being that the NFL was not looking for any 5’11 defensive ends -- at least in this decade).
 
Upon graduating college, I started my own company. I went down to the Hall of Records and registered my trade name; and then to the library to read some books on how to start a company. After reading every book I could find, I typed (yes on a typewriter) a business plan.  
 
I then started asking anyone I could find for business, from walking door to door with companies in industrial parks (I must have looked crazy to them) to volunteering with any charity that would have me. I joined committees and led fund raisers generating tens of thousands of dollars for everyone ranging from children in need to organ transplants. I found that this pro-bono work was truly rewarding, now I only needed to figure how I can start generating income for my new business.
 
My first paying client was a labor union led by my uncle.  I am not sure if he saw great potential or felt sorry for me; I didn’t care why, I now needed to prove myself again.  I visited job sites and wrote about members, developed countless brochures, wrote press releases, organized events and somehow made a difference. Enough so that I started getting other leads: charities, local politicians, groups and committees started calling.  
 
It really started to grow fast; before I knew it, I was representing statewide clients including the Democratic Committee of New Jersey.  But I knew that I needed to get some experience in corporate public relations, so I took a job on the side with a PR firm for three months.  Quickly learning that life at a PR firm was very good and incredibly challenging, I learned a great deal in my short tenure both in how to run an agency and more importantly, how not.  
 
At this point, it was time to make a move.  I left the firm, smarter and more encouraged than ever. I rented a small office that fit nothing more than my desk and computer and I was off and running.  Thank God for my incredible wife who supported us both on a teacher’s salary until things got moving, and she always believed that this would all come together.  
 
My company began to grow. We moved from an office over a laundromat to an office over a copy shop, each step being more interesting than the last. With a little help from some interns, I was representing The Amazing Kreskin, labor unions, and managing multiple elections. My next big break came from a friend who gave me a small project with Nabisco brand.  Luckily at the same time, I made my smartest hire in history, Rich Lukis, who is still my number two at the agency. To this day, we still share the same philosophies about both life and business.   
 
From there it was fast and furious, Oreo, Ritz, Bubble Yum, LifeSavers, you name it and we were hitting home runs for each brand. We soon were getting calls from Mott’s, Campbell Soup Company, Graco, among others.  Bigger offices, more clients, and lots of excitement filled the following seven years.  
 
It began with myself and grew into a small group of people, who loved PR. I wanted to create a great place to work, with a roster of appealing clients and employees who wanted to make a fulfilling living and still have a life.   
 
Today, we are nearly 100 people strong with offices in New Jersey and Times Square. We are consistently winning national awards and this past spring received an award that I have strived to build, “Best Agency to Work for in America.” The biggest lesson of the last fifteen years is that it is the people that count in both life and business; take care of your team they will take care of you.