Nick Nichols

Nick currently develops and teaches graduate-level crisis management courses at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the founder and retired Chairman and CEO of Nichols • Dezenhall Communications Management Group, Ltd. With over three decades in the communications business, he specializes in crisis management and risk communications. Nick began his career as an investigative news correspondent. He left the news business to become Chief of Staff for the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance, and was subsequently appointed State Deputy Secretary of Revenue. Nick relocated to Washington, D.C. to become senior media spokesperson for the Cuban-Haitian Task Force under the Carter and Reagan administrations, where he managed crisis communications following the controversial 1980 Mariel boatlift. Before forming Nichols • Dezenhall, Nick was senior vice president and account group manager at Needham Porter Novelli (Omnicom), then the fourth largest public relations agency in the world. Nick has appeared as a spokesperson on television network news programs including ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s The Today Show and the CBS Evening News. He has also participated as a guest expert on numerous talk shows. His opinions and recommendations on how to combat eco-terrorism have been the topic of Congressional testimony and featured in national, regional and business publications. Nick is a frequent lecturer on the topics of crisis management, high-stakes media relations, environmental policy, domestic terrorism, and the global challenges confronting free enterprise. He has addressed state and federal legislators, federal agency executives, numerous international and domestic trade associations, academic institutions, corporations, and policy groups including the National Governors Association, American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Nick is the author of a book, “Rules for Corporate Warriors,” which was published in October, 2001. He has also written a series of articles and corporate publications that define and examine crisis management strategies and media relations tactics.