It was only eight years ago that Otis Wragg and Ramon Casas went to lunch, scrawled a partnership agreement on a napkin and set up their new business venture. Today, that endeavour is highly successful and has become one of Florida’s leading public relations firms – Wragg & Casas, Inc.

"Our gross is $3 million a year," said Joanna Wragg, 52, executive vice president and a partner in Wragg and Casas. "We’re the largest independently-owned public relations firm in Florida – independently-owned meaning the owners are here; the owners are not in Boston and they’re not in New York – and, we’re the third largest overall in the state."

To find the beginning of Wragg & Casas, you must start with Otis Wragg, tiring of corporate communications with General Development Corp., and his decision in 1989 to start his own public relations business in a bedroom of his home. Business expanded rapidly and the former managing editor of The Miami News soon opened a small office in downtown Miami and dubbed it Wragg & Associates.

Ramon Casas, meantime, was wrapping up a lengthy career with the then number one public relations agency in Miami, Hank Meyer & Associates, which coincidentally represented General Development when Wragg worked for the company. Seeing a mutual need, the two old friends – who worked for a decade in a client-agency relationship – went to that memorable lunch together one day in 1991. The result was a partnership agreement handwritten on a napkin and a new name for Wragg’s fledgling public relations business – Wragg & Casas.

The next step was to convince Joanna – Otis’ wife – to join the team, which was no easy task since she was firmly lodged at the Miami Herald after 13 years, was associate editor of the editorial page and part of a team that had won a Pulitzer Prize. But, in February 1992 she relented, quit the Herald, joined the firm and it’s been a rocket ride ever since.

"We wanted to create something different, a different model for a public relations firm, a PR firm that really looks more like a law firm," Ms. Wragg recalled. "It’s more on the professional services level. We call it a firm and not an agency."

The company today sprawls across the fourth floor of the 1000 Brickell Avenue Building, accommodating a staff of 27 and providing a broad range of communication services to a blue-ribbon client list, including Mercy Hospital, US Sugar Corp., Williams Communications, Lockheed-Martin IMS, Colonial Bank, Sirgany Enterprises and Spillis Candela & Partners.

"We’re corporate and do a lot of business-to-business work," she explained. "We’re not heavy on retail and we don’t do a lot of tourism. We have professionals, lawyers, health care and agribusiness – orange, dairy and sugar – which is one of the three largest industries in Florida. We are the largest public relations firm in the state in that area."

Ms. Wragg said her firm has opened satellite offices in Orlando and Ft. Myers to serve the regional interests of its statewide clients and to work with local clients in those markets.

"We have a lot of clients in Orlando, and Ft. Myers is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in Florida," she said. "Small base, but growing very fast and developing the Silicone Beach, as they call it. With today’s technology, we can keep the production facilities and a lot of the infrastructure here, and put professionals in the field."

Ms. Wragg said when a client comes to Wragg & Casas, they begin with an analysis of the client’s business plan.

"I have to understand the business plan before I can give a coherent proposal for a communications support program that will help meet the client’s needs," she explained. "But, in terms of attracting customers, first you need to know what customer it is you’re trying to attract, because if we implement the wrong communications program for a business and have the wrong people call them, then all we’re doing is wasting their time.

"We determine what segment of business you’re trying to grow, analyze that, see where those kinds of customers come from and aim the communications program there, not at the ones you lose money on. It is very logical, but it is an exercise that is very difficult for businesses to go through."

Ms. Wragg said the business of public relations is more than generating publicity for a client. She listed crisis planning, issues management, media and investor relations, media training for executives and managers, creating promotions and special events and producing presentations and publications as other areas where public relations expertise is useful.

"Sometimes people will come to us and say, ‘Nobody knows who we are,’" Ms Wragg said. "Well, who needs to know who you are? Many businesses are not retail, they don’t need to be a household name. Now, if you just want to be famous personally, that’s a different exercise. If you want to be a celebrity executive, that’s a another exercise.

"And, some business executives and professionals – like lawyers and doctors – reach a point in their lives where they’re so successful, they want to be better known in the community, want to get active in civic work, start giving something back. But, they don’t know how to go about that because they’ve spent the last 30 years building the business, the law firm or the medical practice. That’s a slightly different exercise and we do a lot of that."

Wragg & Casas itself is involved in numerous community projects and organizations on a pro bono basis. Ms. Wragg is on the board of governors of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, is president of the Dade County Public Education Fund and is on the Education Committee of the Work Force Development Project. Mr. Wragg is on the boards of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center on Key Biscayne and the Governor’s Council for a Sustainable Florida. Casas serves as the 1999 president of Lighthouse for the Blind and is on the board of the Beacon Council, a Miami-Dade economic development agency.

"Working in the community is very important to us," said Ms. Wragg. "If we didn’t care about the community, we probably all would have left years ago seeking other professional opportunities. It was because we all wanted to stay here that we ended up forming this company."