Schneider Taps New York Trio To Run Outpost

BOSTON-Schneider & Associates here has become the latest independent public relations agency to establish an office in New York. The outpost will be managed by senior vice president and co-creative director Stephen Schechter.
“I felt the need to have a New York presence and wanted someone who had really big New York agency experience and was willing to work part time in New York and part time in Boston,” said agency president and founder Joan Schneider.
“The opportunity to be with an aggressive, midsized agency that wants to compete with the larger agencies was very appealing to me,” Schechter said.
For the past six years, Schechter has run his own New York practice, SMS Public Relations, while consulting to Schneider & Associates. He will wrap up his current contracts and close his practice by the end of the year, Schechter said.
He brings no clients with him but hopes to persuade “those that make sense” to join Schneider & Associates, he said. His client roster includes Rubicon Holdings in Philadelphia, Allard Associates in San Francisco and Quality House of Graphics and Advantage Consulting, both in New York.
Prior to running his own practice, Schechter worked for 25 years at the Chicago and New York offices of Hill & Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller.
He is joined by senior consultants Malcolm Petrook and Richard Altman.
Petrook, who most recently was national media relations director at Burson-Marsteller, opened Fleishman-Hillard’s New York office in 1980. At Schneider & Associates, he works on business-to-business and financial accounts.
Altman was the public relations director at the New York Convention and Business Bureau.