Dr. J. Eric Kowalczyk’s career is about helping leaders and organizations communicate with integrity and impact. The author of The Politics of Crisis, Eric works with and leads teams of experts, helping identify and execute communications and crisis management strategies for elected officials, law firms, municipalities, political campaigns, and nonprofit organizations. His passion is working to address issues in marginalized communities, which formed the basis for his book.
Eric works with clients in areas such as leadership strategy, critical incident mitigation, crisis communications, public affairs, municipal communications, internal/external communications strategy, and media relations/training.
Eric is a veteran of the Baltimore Police Department. As a Captain and Director of Media Relations, he helped confront and navigate the communications issues during the Freddie Gray riots in the glare of a national spotlight. While simultaneously facilitating local, national, and international media, Eric implemented a crisis communications strategy widely praised by media across the county as responsive and understanding of community concerns.
Eric has consulted with a U.S. presidential, gubernatorial, senate, house, and mayoral campaigns. He is a member of several national professional associations. He has trained over 2,000 communications specialists in 41 states and 75 cities across the country and presented at numerous national conferences, including the 2021 and 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions. He is a 2016 TEDx Beacon Street speaker. Eric is on the Executive Board of the SCCPWR and the Advisory Board for the Cobb Institute. Eric is an ordained interfaith minister, holds a postgraduate degree in Divinity, and a Doctorate in Ministry.
