We were lucky to catch up with Texas-based crisis communications expert Mary Love recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mary, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

What’s in a name? For our team, it’s everything.

Mach 1 is the speed of sound – and a metaphor for high speed in general – and this principle, along with efficiency, is what this group was founded on.

I should note here that my business partner and our founder, Katherine McLane, is a PR legend – an actual PR legend. She helped navigate one of the most visible reputation crises in history during her time with Livestrong (formerly the Lance Armstrong Foundation). She’d also served for the governor of California and was a presidential appointee as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education.

During her decades of service in government and non-profit work – which required her to work alongside many public relations and public affairs agencies – she found that often of these firms lacked the attention and urgency many organizations needed, especially during a crisis. So she created a firm that does just that – and one that values hard work, focused energy and measurable results and provides swift and excellent service.

Mary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The Mach 1 Group is a RARE public relations firm because – in addition to traditional PR efforts – we serve organizations and causes at the crossroads of public opinion and public policy.

Everyone on our team has either worked in government or covered politics as a reporter. For example, before Mach 1, I was the communications director for a statewide elected official at Texas’ energy regulatory agency. Other members of our team have served governors, in federal and state agencies or in newsrooms as Capitol correspondents.

So, our expertise comes from decades in the toughest communications realms there are: political campaigns, government and crisis management. This makes us highly skilled in media and public relations, and we put our vast knowledge and experience to work to position our clients, their reputations and offerings in a positive, consistent and credible light, building public support and mobilizing public opinion. As a nationally recognized, award-winning firm, we’ve developed a reputation as hardworking, efficient and excellent.

We’re also proud to be a certified Historically Underutilized Business (HUB), being 100 percent female-founded and -owned, with an almost entirely female team.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Texas government is a small community. When I met my business partner, Katherine McLane, I was working for a statewide elected official and keeping my ear to the ground for new opportunities. Katherine had recently started The Mach 1 Group and was in need of an extra set of hands.

So, when a mutual acquaintance introduced us it seemed like a good fit. I had the skillset she was looking for – a deep understanding of strategic communication, policy and political expertise and crisis and reputation management experience.

When we were in the trenches together during COVID – having to overhaul all of our clients’ communications plans overnight – it became clear that we were a unique match. Katherine and I recently discovered that we have the same rare personality type – INFJ, according to Meyers Briggs – so we have a very similar vision mindset – but we’re also opposite in many ways, which gives us balance. We work incredibly well together. We not only retained clients during that challenging time – we (thankfully) gained some and expanded our team.

She approached me about becoming a partner last year, and I recently bought into the firm. Mach 1 and its team are our passion. We know we have something special, and we’re committed to making it the best public affairs communication and crisis firm in the country.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Our internal culture is enormously important to us and one way we create this culture is through our work life balance. Many of us at Mach 1 are women – and this balance is important to us – so we work remotely most of the time and allow flexibility in everyone’s schedules. We also prize solidarity over competition. We encourage our team members to solve challenges together before they bring them to management. We hire the best and brightest and we put a great deal of faith in them. Thanks to these practices, we’ve attracted incredible talent that is highly motivated because they value our culture. As a result, we’ve developed an outstanding reputation as reliable, creative and meticulous.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.themach1group.com
• Instagram: @themach1group
• Twitter: @themach1group

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