A “different” Hodges…the ownership.
To say 2025 is a year of change at The Hodges Partnership is a bit of an understatement.
We moved, we changed our brand and we focused on how we evolved over the years to solidify our “different” direction for the future.
Today we announce something completely different, a new ownership structure.
This announcement comes with a range of mixed emotions. Happiness, pride, a bit of sadness. It also comes with 23 years of great memories as well as tremendous excitement for the years to come.
When you start and grow a business with someone for 23 years, they become more than a business partner. They become your confidant, your friend, your second husband/wife. They know things about you that few others do. You go to war with them. You sing show tunes and old cartoon theme songs with them. That is what Josh Dare is to me.
It is with a wild mix of happiness and sadness that we announce Josh’s retirement at the end of the year. He’s put up with me for 23 years. Because of that alone no one deserves a healthy and prosperous retirement more than Josh. He will start that new journey when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s.
Over the years Josh and I have talked about our “exits” and how we wanted the company we started to continue long past our day-to-day involvement in it ends. It was extremely important to us to keep Hodges “in the family” because to us Hodges is family.
Many “Hodgers” have stayed with us for more than a decade. We’ve seen countless weddings and births. We also seen tremendous personal and professional growth under our roofs and hope our mentorship has prepared our next generation to continue to grow Hodges for many years in the future.
It is with that hope and pride that we also announce the sale of the company to four Hodgers who have been leading the company for many years. Beginning in January, Lindsay O’Bar, APR, Paulyn Ocampo, Sean Ryan and Greg Surber, APR will join me as owners of The Hodges Partnership. I am thankful to them for their enthusiasm and their investment in company’s future. Their ownership is a natural extension of both their current roles but also their leadership in the broader public relations/marketing and volunteer communities.
We congratulate them.
To our current group of Hodgers, thanks so much for all your hard work. In some ways we’re just getting started and we wouldn’t want to move forward with anyone else. As the company continues to grow, our pledge to you is to continue to provide growth opportunities to all of you.
To past Hodgers, folks like Stacey, Charlynn, Steve, Emily, Julia, Tony, Duncan, Kelsey and Andrew, there are too many to name.
So yes, things will be different. And the same. Change always is.
As for me, I’m not going anywhere, at least for a while. I promised Josh we would still get together once a month to grab lunch and I promised the team that we still have a lot of work to do before I eventually leave.
And Kyra would kill me if I was home all time…
Jon Newman
In 2002 Jon cofounded The Hodges Partnership and has helped to grow it into one of the country’s largest public relations firms (based on O’Dwyer’s annual rankings). Jon has taught communications as an adjunct professor at VCU, speaks regularly at conferences and meetings and blogs and tweets about public relations and marketing issues.
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