Twenty Years In: What Building Maroon PR Taught Me About Business, Change, and Staying Ahead
I still have the ledger.
It’s handwritten, a little worn, and there were stretches early on when the balance sat under $1,000. I kept it not as a cautionary tale, but as a reminder — of where we started, of what it felt like to be in the thick of building something from nothing, and of how exhilarating that uncertainty really was. Looking back, those were some of the most thrilling days of my professional life.
This year, Maroon PR turns twenty. And I find myself in a reflective mood.
The Road to the Starting Line
I didn’t arrive at entrepreneurship in a straight line. My path ran through a high school that gave me confidence I didn’t know I had, then St. John’s University, where a door opened that changed everything: an internship at Major League Baseball. That internship launched my career in public relations, and the mentor I found there — Phyllis Merhige — shaped how I think about this profession to this day.
I didn’t ever strive to start a firm, or any business for that matter. I had been working at Ripken Baseball and starting to look for something new, maybe a return to professional sports, when my big brother Mike suggested that I start an agency. I asked him how the heck you get paid and he told me that you go out and find it. That terrified me, but he assured me that “we have the gene,” dad was an entrepreneur who was forced into that life when his dad passed, and he only attended school through the sixth grade. He was an amazing guy, with a pretty amazing wife, my mom. When the time came to start my own firm, I had a strong foundation, a lot of drive, and not much else. My wife Carolyn, pretty amazing as well, supported that decision without hesitation, and her steadiness has been one of the constants of both my life and this business. I knew what I wanted to build. I just had to go build it.
The Early Days
Our first client was Cal Ripken, Jr. That still gives me pause when I say it. Cal encouraged me and was there for me at the start, probably not sure it would ever work out. For that I will always be grateful. Our longest tenured client, we remain friends and work together to this day.
The first major client win came at the end of 2006 — the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Cancer Society. I remember exactly how that felt. It was the moment the business stopped feeling like a leap of faith and started feeling like a company.
From there, we grew — carefully, intentionally, and always with an eye toward doing the work right rather than just doing more of it.
Evolving With — and Ahead of — the Industry
Here is something worth understanding about public relations in 2006: it was almost entirely media relations. You pitched stories. You built press lists. You cultivated relationships with journalists. That was the job.
There was no social media strategy. Content creation was not a service category. Ad buys belonged to the ad agencies, full stop.
Then everything changed.
When we invested to bring video production in-house, we were well ahead of where the industry was heading. When social media emerged as a communications channel, we didn’t wait to see how it would shake out — we committed to it early and built real expertise. Content creation, influencer partnerships, digital storytelling — these have grown from new experiments into some of the strongest drivers of our business today.
And then — as it so often does — the wheel turned again.
Media relations, the discipline that was always at the core of what we do, is experiencing a genuine resurgence. As AI-driven search reshapes the way people discover and evaluate information, earned media has taken on new weight. A credible third-party story, a bylined article, a journalist’s endorsement — these carry authority that algorithms recognize and reward. We always believed in the power of earned media. It was in our DNA from the beginning. It’s gratifying to see its resurgence in new and exciting ways. Not to mention how critical journalism is to our society as a whole.
Today, effective public relations lives across three pillars: Earned media, Owned media, and Paid media. The agencies that thrive are the ones that understand not just each pillar, but how they reinforce one another. That integrated thinking has been central to how Maroon PR operates, and it is a big part of why we are positioned well for what comes next.
On Risk, Growth, and Not Always Knowing
At some point in building a business, you have to make decisions without a roadmap. When to hire. When to expand. When to bet on a new capability before the market fully demands it.
I once had the chance to ask Kevin Plank — one of the great entrepreneurial minds in this region — how you know when to take those risks. His answer was direct: you never really know. That’s what makes owning a business not for the faint of heart. There is no perfect moment. There is no guaranteed signal. You make the best decision you can with the information you have, and then you commit.
That exchange has stayed with me. It is both humbling and liberating. I mean if the founder of Under Armour didn’t always know or have a definitive “right” answer, why should I?
The Clients Who Grew With Us
Twenty years of business means nothing without the clients who trusted us with their brands, their stories, and their reputations — year after year.
I want to recognize a group of clients who have been with Maroon PR for five years or more, because that kind of loyalty is not something I take lightly. Cal Ripken, Jr. and the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation. Classic 5 Golf. The Maryland Food Bank. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. The Owings Mills Marriott. And the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.
These organizations represent an extraordinary range of missions and industries, and what they share is a commitment to doing meaningful work. We are proud to stand alongside each of them. Their trust and the relationships we’ve built over the years is among the things I am most grateful for.
The People Who Made It Real
A company is only as good as the people inside it. I have been fortunate in ways I cannot fully articulate.
Our COO, Jen Renehan, has been part of the Maroon PR story since the beginning. She may have left for a bit to gain experience and wisdom, but she returned over twelve years ago. Watching her grow into the leader she is today has been one of the genuine joys of my professional life. And our entire team — smart, capable, kind, and deeply invested in the work — treats this company as their own. That is not something you can manufacture. It is something you earn, and something I am grateful for every single day.
What’s Next
Honestly, I don’t know exactly what the next twenty years look like. The industry will keep changing. New platforms will emerge. New challenges will arrive. And we will adapt — as we always have. How much longer for me? As I write this I have no idea.
What I do know is this: I am more energized today than I have been in years. I love this work. I believe in this team. 2025 was the company’s best year yet. And I know that everything we have built — every client relationship, every campaign, every risk we took before the market told us to — has prepared us well for whatever comes next.
All of it, every bit of it, has been a grace.
Here’s to the next twenty years.
The author is John Maroon, the founder and president of Maroon PR, a full-service public relations agency in Columbia, Maryland. 2026 marks the company’s 20th anniversary.