PR Firm Among 8 West Michigan Businesses on Inc. Mag List

A Grand Rapids public relations firm is one of eight West Michigan businesses named to Inc. Magazine's annual list of the nation's 5000 fastest growing businesses.

Lambert-Edwards and Associates came in 4070 on the list. The firm had a growth rate in the past year of 48.1 percent, according to their news release about the ranking.

Other West Michigan businesses to make the list were in financial, IT, telecommunications, and human resources services as well as manufacturing and construction, as reported by MLive. 

It is nice to see public relations is one of the growing industries represented.

LEA's Growth Continues

I honored Shandra Martinez's request not to blog about the Lambert Edwards and Associates acquisition of John Bailey and Associates til her story ran in Sunday's Grand Rapids Press.

In addition to that story, and others in Crain's (subscription required) and the Detroit Free Press, you can get it straight from the horse's mouth in the LEA press release. 

Aside from the fact that this deal moves LEA up in the rankings of PR firms by O'Dwyer's, the acquisition of Troy-based Bailey by Grand Rapids-based LEA shows a balance of PR power shifting to West Michigan.

The only thing I'd add to the Press article is an item of clarification: I don't merely teach the LEA Spartan Motors investor relations campaign as a case study because LEA is a local firm; this local firm was included in a new version of a popular PR case studies text book used across the country. Even local competitors of LEA can be glad that the West Michigan PR community  gets a nod like that.