Peter Dowd Joins Marshall Consultants as Chairman.

ASHLAND, Ore. -- Peter Dowd, who took early retirement several years ago from being Senior Vice President of Corporate Relations at Fidelity Investments, has joined PR-oriented executive search and management consulting firm, Marshall Consultants, LLC as Chairman, according to CEO/Managing Director, and Founder Larry Marshall.

Besides handling selected senior-level executive search assignments, Dowd will focus particular attention on servicing Marshall's management consulting clients, conducting corporate communications audits, developing strategic communications programs, advising on mergers and acquisitions for PR and general communications firms, conducting staff evaluations and training, including succession management, as well as counseling PR consultancies on new business development.

"Peter's more than 30 years experience in notable agency and corporate public relations, corporate communications, advertising, and marketing gives him a unique perspective that we believe our clients will find to be of great value in helping them achieve their respective business and communications goals," said Marshall. "Moreover, his approach to corporate communications consulting, together with our firm's long experience and success in the executive search arena, generates a degree of synergy we believe can benefit all of our firm's clients."

Prior to joining Fidelity Investments in 1996, Dowd served for eight years as Vice President & General Manager of Public Relations at Texaco, where he headed the corporate communications function. His agency experience included more than a decade with Hill and Knowlton, initially in New York and later, based in Los Angeles, as Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the agency's five Western Division offices. He also served as a Partner in the international communications management consulting firm of Haley, Kiss and Dowd. He began his career as a reporter with United Press International in New York. He has broad knowledge of the cultural differences of eastern and western candidates and clients.

As an avocation, Dowd also taught public relations consulting for several years at the University of Southern California. He now resides in Ashland, Oregon, as does Larry and Joy Marshall.

"I believe Dowd's outstanding credentials surpass those of former corporate communications practitioners who have transitioned into PR-oriented executive search firms," Marshall added. "His higher level of functional expertise will enable us to more quickly identify the best candidates for any client position, to evaluate more accurately the PR and corporate communications acumen of those candidates, and present to our clients only those candidates with truly superior capabilities and potential."

Marshall Consultants, founded in 1967, was the first executive search firm specializing in PR, corporate and marketing communications and investor relations and has represented over half of the Fortune 500 companies, most major and evolving PR agencies, as well as prestigious institutions regionally, nationally and globally. Originally based in New York for over 35 years, with offices in Seattle and Los Angeles, it has recently been reestablished in Ashland, OR.