Mario is a dedicated and passionate corporate public relations professional with more than 20 years of experience as Director of Corporate Communications, media spokesperson, crisis communications specialist, media relations strategist, and social media producer. Mario has held management/leadership positions with a global disaster organization, the United Way of Houston, and the Cenikor Foundation.

Mario has created and implemented international communications campaigns and secured national and international media coverage. He has successfully booked interviews with ABC News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNN International, London Times, commercial aviation trade publications in Europe and the Middle East. Mario has also positioned corporate staff as subject matter experts and booked national and international interviews related to the recovery efforts of Air France Flight 447, US Air Flight 1549 and crisis management challenges for the government of Japan after the earthquake and tsunami.

During his tenure with The United Way of Houston, Mario was a member of the Executive Management team. He analyzed the potential impact of a critical situation involving the 2001 Enron financial crisis (a major United Way corporate donor) and questionable donations to the organization. He implemented a crisis communications plan and managed a “feeding frenzy” of potentially negative national news coverage and minimized the impact to The United Way. Result: no negative news coverage with The United Ways’ involvement during the Enron crisis.

Mario‘s previous experience includes positions as a television news and radio reporter in the southeast United States. He has received awards from the Public Relations Society of America, Texas Public Relations Association, a Suncoast Television Emmy nominee, and he is FEMA Certified National Incident Management System Public Information Officer (IS-0072.a) and a member of the Public Information Officer (PIO) Network Houston/Galveston Region.

Insights