POLITICS

Shake-up of Pence communications staff continues after RFRA

Tony Cook
tony.cook@indystar.com

Gov. Mike Pence continues to shake up his communications staff after a pair of high-profile public relations disasters this year.

Shelley Triol, a spokeswoman for the Department of Administration, took a new position as Pence’s communications director Tuesday, according to an email to the governor’s staff.

She is the second new staffer in as many weeks. Matt Lloyd, Pence’s longtime congressional communications director and a former spokesman for Koch Industries, took over last week as Pence’s deputy chief of staff for communications and strategy.

Triol brings television and public relations experience to the governor’s office. She has worked for WTHR-13 and Fox 59, and more recently for Sease, Gerig & Associates, an Indianapolis firm that offers crisis communications. She also served a stint at Purdue University as vice president of external relations, working under former Gov. Mitch Daniels.

“Shelley brings a deep history of work in media and public relations that will be a great benefit to advancing the Governor’s agenda,” Lloyd wrote in an email to staff.

He said she “will be the main point of contact for communicators at the agencies and will help direct the overall efforts of the press office.”

Pence’s former communications director, Christy Denault, resigned earlier this month, citing family responsibilities that include raising triplets.

Her departure followed Pence’s worst public relations fiascoes since becoming governor: the administration’s failed plan to start a state-run news service called JustIN, and Pence’s own troubles defending Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The administration recently hired global PR firm Porter Novelli for an initial $750,000 to rehabilitate the state’s image after the RFRA controversy, which drew calls for boycotts and threats from convention organizers who feared the new law would allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.

After a national backlash, the law was clarified by the legislature at Pence’s urging, explicitly forbidding the erosion of local ordinances that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Call Star reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter: @indystartony.