The California State University (CSU) is preparing the final details for its annual Advocacy Training Conference that will be held this year in Los Angeles at the Crowne Plaza LAX. We have several exciting speakers who have agreed to join us for this one day training in order to share their knowledge on advocacy and how to be effective in getting your message to decision-makers.

Former Republican consultant Dan Schnur and Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio will be pairing up to offer a session that will look at the political pundits on California’s elections. They will also be focusing some of their conversation on current political reform that is percolating throughout the state. Currently Mr. Schnur is the director for the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California (USC) where he share his expertise in political strategy, campaign communications and government reform. Prior to landing at USC, Mr. Schnur was one of California’s leading political and media strategists, whose record includes work on four presidential and three gubernatorial campaigns. Schnur served as the national Director of Communications for the 2000 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator John McCain and spent five years as chief media spokesman for California Governor Pete Wilson. Mr. Maviglio is the principal of Forza Communications, a Sacramento-based public affairs/campaign firm. He was formerly Deputy Chief of Staff for two history-making California Assembly Speakers, Karen Bass and Fabian Nunez, where he provided strategic communication and political advice to the Speaker and the Assembly Democratic Caucus. He also spent three years as Governor Gray Davis’ chief spokesperson.

Additionally we will also be welcoming Ryan McPherson from the University of Buffalo where he serves as the Associate Vice President for Government and Community Relations. In his role at the university Mr. McPherson provides strategic counsel to the university president and senior leadership, and works closely with communications, development and other key senior university administrators to effectively advocate and implement the university’s government and community agenda. While there he has developed a dynamic integrated advocacy model that leverages numerous internal and external partners to greatly amplify UB’s core message and influence in Albany, Washington and Buffalo.

In addition to the above dynamic speakers we are also securing a current state legislative representatives that can address from first-hand knowledge what it takes to get the attention of lawmakers. We are also going to be taking some time during the day to discuss the state’s current economic outlook and recovery and how this will affect the CSU.

Click here for more information or to register your campus team.