Orion Strategies


Orion Strategies is a strategic communications and public relations firm. The company has offices in Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charleston, West Virginia; Buckhannon, West Virginia; and Martinsburg, West Virginia. It operates throughout the Eastern United States.

History

Orion Strategies was founded in 2007 by Curtis Wilkerson and is based in Charleston, West Virginia. In mid-2008 the company opened a second office in Buckhannon, West Virginia, in order to service the expanding energy sector. In 2017, the company expanded staff into Pennsylvania. In 2018, Orion Strategies opened offices in Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Business overview

Orion Strategies offers public relations and strategic communication services to its clients. Orion Strategies also offers grassroots advocacy, media relations, graphic design, direct mail, opinion polling and research.

National Recognition

National Blog FiveThirtyEight, run by Nate Silver, gave Orion Strategies a B− ranking, the highest of any West Virginian polling organization, in its review of pollsters in the USA.

Recognition in the Media

Founder and spokesman Curtis Wilkerson has been quoted and used as a background source by the Washington Post, CNN, Salon, Huffington Post, the Washington Times, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, State Journal, Intermountain, The Intelligencer & Wheeling News Register, Wheeling News-Register, and West Virginia MetroNews.
During West Virginia’s 2010 senate election Orion Strategies produced a poll that gained national recognition. The firm predicted a 10-point victory in 2010 for U.S. Senate candidate Joe Manchin while numerous other statewide polls called for either a Manchin loss or narrow margin of victory. The Orion poll proved to be the most predictive measurement of the race as Senator Joe Manchin went on to win the election with 60.6% of the vote.
Orion Strategies is not to be confused with Randy Scheunemann and his neoconservative-lobbying company by the same name, Orion Strategies.

Criticisms

In 2011, Politico Morning Tech spoke of Orion being an instrument of AT&T during the telecommunication firm’s attempted merger with T-Mobile. Internet Innovation Alliance used Orion Strategies to get support for the merger. As a result of Orion’s involvement, the West Virginia Farm Bureau wrote a letter of support for the telecommunication merger. Politico questioned the validity of this support.