After 5 years, the State of Ohio finally pulled a press release from its web site. This press release named me and a company I co-founded back in 2003.
The 2003 press release was a classic case of creative public relations gone amuck.
As we started our quest for capital, the first place I visited was Ohio’s Department of Commerce, Division of Economic Development. They recommended that we draw up a prospectus and raise the money ourselves.
We had a local attorney draw up a prospectus for us. As we sought to raise money for this company, I sent an email to all of my contacts announcing what we were doing.
I was immediately contacted by the Department of Commerce’s Division of Securities, and they informed us that we needed to change the prospectus and could only contact what is classified as sophisticated investors (high net worth individuals and companies). This was followed up by a letter (cease and desist from what you are currently doing until you modify your methods).
We immediately agreed to change. We hired a securities attorney from a large law firm in Minneapolis to redo our prospectus. We also hired a securities licensed investment banker from Minnesota to serve as a consultant to raise the money.
Once we had the assistance of these professionals, it only took a few months to raise the money. Since this was an exempt raise, we did not need to file with the SEC or state securities office until the raise was completed.
After our raise was completed someone in Ohio’s Public Relations group wrote a very creative press release. The headline had the word avoid in it, and eventually it made it to Google’s number one ranking whenever anyone searched my name.
We were never accused of, or charged with any type of fraud. We were never sanctioned, cited, fined, or prohibited from raising money in the State of Ohio or anywhere else. We never engaged in any type of fraud, misrepresenting the company or individuals in it.
Although the intent of the State’s letter was to have us stop what we were doing and make revisions, somehow the PR Department translated this into an article telling everyone not to do business with us. To compound this, once it was posted on the Internet, Google gave it a high relevance ranking, and it soared to the number one search ranking position.
The unintended consequence was that the State attached a negative stigma to my name and caused many companies, banks, and individuals to avoid doing business with me. This has caused a tremendous financial hardship. To compound the impact, some people passed the link on to others and informed them they should not be working with us.
Not only were people unwilling to give me a chance to explain what happened, they were also unwilling to call the State’s Division of Securities to find out what really occurred.
We had an attorney work on rectifying this, and also our former State Senator, Jeff Armbruster. In addition, we made numerous trips and calls to various Securities officials in Columbus, Ohio.
Recently, we changed governors in Ohio; Bob Taft is gone and Ted Strickland is our new governor. As a result, there were staffing changes in most agencies in Columbus. In the securities department Harvey McCleskey now heads the investigative group. Harvey is an attorney and I can not tell you what a relief it was from the first time I talked to him on the phone.
He understood immediately and told me that he would not let the bureaucracy stop him from rectifying a wrong. A few weeks after being called, Harvey had the consensus of the Securities Department and they approached the State’s IT group to have the press release removed. Anyone who has ever worked with government agencies knows this is no easy task.
Last Friday, I noticed the web page was gone but the Google reference and cache was still there. This past Thursday Harvey called to inform me that not only was the State’s press release listing deleted, but Google’s cached listing as well.
Unfortunately, there are too few people like Harvey McCleskey in our government.
Rudy Socha is CEO of Zoo & Aquarium Visitor
