The Glover Park Group announced that John Hughes joined the firm as a senior vice president in the Government Affairs practice. Hughes will be based in GPG’s Washington, D.C. office and will work on a broad range of the firm’s clients. John was most recently senior policy advisor to House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer on financial services, trade, manufacturing, small business, housing, and consumer protection issues. Previously, John served as counsel to the House Financial Services Committee and, prior to joining the Committee’s majority staff in 2007, was managing director of tax advocacy at the National Council of State Housing Agencies. (Release)

VOX Global announced its recent hire of John Dunagan, who will join the VOX leadership team as a senior vice president. Most recently, Dunagan served as senior vice president at DDC Advocacy. Prior to DDC, Dunagan co-founded CrossLink Strategy Group (later Mercury) where he pioneered unique issue advocacy techniques including Media Where it Matters and RootsTube. Dunagan will work out of the firm’s Washington, DC office location. (Release)

Jonathan Cohen has been named chief operating officer at Behan Communications. Cohen joined Behan Communications in 2012 to help lead the firm’s expansion. He has an extensive background in journalism, government and public affairs and has led a number of strategic communications firms to success and played a leading role in the turnaround of two technology companies. Formerly a publisher of Commentary Magazine and an advisor to New York City Mayor Ed Koch, Jon also has served as president of The Weiser Group, a global public relations firm, and of Cohen Strategic LLC, an international consulting group. (Website)

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One unspoken law rules the PR industry: the client’s interests always come first. And if the interests of a certain client happen to directly contradict the interests of a former client? Well, that’s just the way the game is played.

Still, we can’t help but feel a little awkward when reading about the recent adventures of Washington, DC lobbying firm The Glover Park Group. Why? Because the group, which was founded in 2001 by a team of White House veterans, made a name for itself in 2008 by creating a media campaign aimed at the ethanol industry in the interest of persuading the government to eliminate certain tax benefits that heavily favored the producers of ethanol, aka grain alcohol, aka corn. In case you haven’t heard, corn equals big money and big politics in those heartland “swing states” you hear so much about—which is why no politician in his or her right mind will risk inducing the wrath of big ethanol.

But Glover Park recently performed what we like to call “a complete 180” by signing on to perform PR work for The Renewable Fuels Association, a government lobbying group that represents…you guessed it, the ethanol industry.

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Longtime Atlanta Hawks vice president of public relations Arthur Triche has been fired. According to NewsOK, Triche had been with the Hawks since 1989 as the team’s top contact for media, and was a fixture in the Atlanta sports scene. On Wednesday a Hawks rep called Triche’s exit “a personnel decision” but did not release a statement on the move. (NewsOK)

The Glover Park Group, working with “retired” advertising super star Alex Bogusky, is launching two short ads for the Climate Reality Project, former Vice President Al Gore’s crusade against climate change. The Project will kick off “24 Hours of Reality” on September 14, a round-the-clock online broadcast event that will show the impact of climate change across 24 time zones. It’ll air once every hour in 13 languages.

The ads are called “The Fat Lady Sings” and “The Denial Has Hit the Fan,” and they show an overweight opera singer, and something brown hitting a fan, respectively.

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Yesterday, The Glover Park Group announced that former White House press secretary to President Bill Clinton, Dee Dee Myers, had joined the firm as MD of its public affairs practice. Today, Myers spoke with PRNewser about the transition to PR, what she’s looking forward to, and what public affairs practitioners can do to prepare this election year.

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