(Page 2 of 3) Regis McKenna: The P.R. Guru of Silicon Valley : Clout With HighTech Firms and Press Is Great, but Some Are Disenchanted August 04, 1985 | VICTOR F. ZONANA | Times Staff Writer McKenna agrees that attracting and retaining good managers has been a problem. Last year, he appointed a president, Paul Dali, former general manager of the Apple II division at Apple Computer. And McKenna is bringing in other top officials from Intel and Montgomery Securities, a San Franciscobased brokerage firm with a wellrespected research department. He's also working on a plan to distribute equity in the firm to key officials. And to those clients who are dissatisfied with the firm's performance, McKenna offers what has become his standard spiel. "Public relations is a process that takes years and years of work," he says, adding that he often tries to dampen the expectations of brilliant entrepreneurs who have spent years nurturing a product and want instant recognition. McKenna insists that he is no runofthemill p.r. man, and many loyal clients agree. "We are more part of the electronics industry than part of the p.r. industry," he says. "I've never studied public relations; I've studied technology." McKenna was raised in a devoutly Catholic home in Pittsburgh and studied existential philosophy at Duquesne University. Although four of his brothers became priests or monks, Regis took another path, marrying at age 20 and getting a job as an advertising salesman for a local company that published technical magazines. Worked for Pioneer That was his introduction to technology. He was transferred to California, went to work for an advertising agency and soon thereafter took an advertising and public relations job with General Micro Electronics, an early maker of semiconductors. Today, McKenna is an active participant in the Semiconductor Industry Assn. and is president of the National Commission on Industrial Innovation, a group patterned after a statewide body created by former California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Its members include Robert Swanson, chairman of Genentech, and Sens. John Chaffee and John Danforth. McKenna avoids membership in associations of p.r. people. Says Krause of Apple: "Regis is more of a strategist than a p.r. man. He advises most members of our executive staff, and he's a frequent lecturer at Apple." Krause, who has taken some flak from the press for her bosses' "no comment" posture during Apple's current downturn, was unperturbed by McKenna staffer Cunningham's boast about being better informed about Apple goingson. "We're both well tuned in," Krause says diplomatically. "Fundamentally," McKenna says, "the best p.r. is a good product. The more you promote a bad product, the faster you'll go out of business." That's because the computer business is driven by wordofmouth. "If you're happy with a product you buy, you'll tell three people about it," McKenna says. "If you're unhappy, you'll tell 11 people." Cultivates Opinion Makers His belief in wordofmouth led McKenna to recognize, early on, the importance of the computer industry analysts, leading retailers, software developers and other "luminaries" that journalists turn to when shaping stories. And McKenna cultivates these "thought leaders" assiduously. "Ninety percent of the world's views are controlled by the 10% who are opinion makers," he says. "A good job of public relations demands that you develop relations with relatively few people." Those few people, in McKenna's view, included editors of business publications as well as the trade press that Silicon Valley public relations people were used to dealing with. "The thing we did differently," FROM THE ARCHIVES Band of Angels, Still Humming March 9, 2003 Silicon Valley Paying the Price for Its Own Success September 20, 1999 Silicon Valley's Political Myopia July 4, 1999 MORE STORIES ABOUT Technology Public Relations Silicon Valley Intel YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home → Collections → Technology