Lorri Rishar Jandron and the client who stayed

In June 2025, Lorri Rishar Jandron had an unusually useful answer to the question every agency owner eventually gets: how do you know the business is working? Edge Partnerships had recently received a woman-owned small business award. But in her conversation with Michael Rogers, she pointed to something less ceremonial. The agency’s first client was still a client, nearly eighteen years after the firm began.

A new account comes with a little theatre. There is a pitch, a decision, perhaps a celebratory lunch. An old account comes with history. Someone remembers the previous campaign, the awkward deadline, the time the brief changed. To stay hired through all that is an accomplishment with very little room for stage lighting. For Rishar Jandron, the continuing relationship was a reason to feel grateful.

That detail makes a good doorway into her career. She has edited community newspapers, worked inside Michigan’s House of Representatives, co-founded a communications agency and taken on statewide volunteer leadership. The settings change. The recurring business is understanding people well enough to keep a conversation going.

Before the pitch, the local paper

Rishar Jandron started in community journalism, editing newspapers in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Grand Ledge, Michigan. Her reporting on education, local government and communities received Michigan Press Association awards. These were beats where an editor had to make institutional decisions understandable to the people living with them.

There is a particular discipline to community news. The reader may know the person in the story, use the school under discussion or turn up at the next council meeting. Abstraction has a short shelf life. A government decision needs an explanation; a confident assertion needs checking. Her early work placed her close to that exchange between public institutions and everyday questions.

In 1994, state Representative Frank Fitzgerald recruited her into the Michigan House’s communications office. Over seven years there, she became communications director and then chief of staff to the Speaker. Her responsibilities had moved beyond explaining decisions to helping an institution function. The former newspaper editor now worked on the other side of the questions.

The company hiding inside a complaint

Edge began in 2007 with Rishar Jandron and Angela Witwer. Before they became business partners, they were colleagues who repeatedly looked for an outside agency that matched what they needed. After years of searching, Witwer suggested that they open the agency themselves. It was a practical origin for a business: the prospective founders had already spent years being its prospective customers.

The leap came while Rishar Jandron was completing an MBA. Her education had begun with an English degree at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, with minors in journalism and fine arts; graduate business study took her to Northwood University’s DeVos school. Writing, visual judgment and running a business would all have somewhere to go.

The company signed its first client soon after starting. By 2014, Edge appeared among Michigan’s 50 Companies to Watch. The early account of the business also described a workplace where employees were encouraged to feel invested in the firm. “Everyone here feels like they’re an owner,” Rishar said. Ownership, in that telling, was meant to describe the working day as well as the paperwork.

A map with room for Marquette

On August 31, 2022, Edge celebrated its Marquette office opening on West Washington Street. Rishar stood with local business and community representatives behind a grand-opening banner. Fifteen years after the agency began, there was another local audience to meet.

The expansion answered demand for strategic marketing services in the Upper Peninsula. Gianna Ferraro, a Marquette resident and Northern Michigan University graduate, worked as the office’s marketing and communications specialist. She already had a connection to the city’s arts activity through coordinating the First Thursdays Art Tour with the arts and culture office. Edge sponsored the tour with branding and social media support.

That gives the expansion a useful texture. A new office can be announced with a pin on a map. Here, the work also connected to a recurring event and someone who knew the community. At the time, the agency had offices in Lansing and Chicago and represented clients around the country. Its next chapter arrived with a very specific street and a local introduction.

The question before the advertisement

Rishar Jandron’s advice about marketing starts earlier than the advertisement. In a 2022 interview, she drew a distinction between the business objective and the tools used to achieve it. Advertising is one available tactic. So are public relations, digital work and social media. Choosing among them requires an answer to a prior question: “What do you want to accomplish?”

It sounds almost impolitely simple. Yet the question asks a client to make a decision before commissioning something attractive. A campaign can look busy while leaving its purpose beautifully vague. Rishar’s emphasis is on identifying the audience, selecting a suitable medium and making the message fit the moment. Digital tools offer opportunities to test and adjust; traditional channels still have a role when they reach the intended people.

In January 2024, she joined Ellyn Davidson of Brogan & Partners and Andrea Poole of Martin-Waymire for a discussion with Michigan broadcasters. The agenda extended beyond airtime to podcasts, events and social partnerships. Her working world had broadened considerably since newspapers, while the underlying question of reaching an audience remained familiar.

“What do you want to accomplish?”

Lorri Rishar Jandron, on choosing a marketing approach

Trench coats, algorithms and saying thank you

Her writing can approach a business subject with a raised eyebrow. A February 2023 marketing article opened with fashion advice, including a warning about skinny jeans and no-show socks, before moving into artificial intelligence, video and customer experience. It is a brisk way to remind an audience that marketers have seasons and fashions too.

For smaller businesses, her recommendations were scaled to available resources. Improve the experience on one online platform before attempting a sprawling digital presence. Build a usable collection of short videos. If a professional shoot is out of reach, a smartphone can provide a starting point. Keep the messages clear and the material current.

Then came the oldest recommendation in the piece: treat customers with kindness and appreciation. A polished online encounter needs a business behind it that behaves accordingly. That observation sits comfortably beside her pride in keeping Edge’s first client. The technology receives its due, but so does the person answering the customer. The trench coat is optional.

Even her advice in a short business video leaves room for modest beginnings. In a Wednesday Wisdom appearance, she encouraged owners to look for inspiration in small things. It fits the scale of her practical suggestions: a single improved online experience, a short piece of video, an ordinary customer interaction handled thoughtfully. Each gives a business somewhere concrete to begin.

Taking a seat beyond her own company

Her professional recognition stretches across several kinds of work. In 2011, the Central Michigan chapter of the Public Relations Society of America named her its PACE Maker recipient. The award considers professional contributions, leadership, mentoring and public service, alongside the practice of research, planning, execution and evaluation.

In 2015, the Small Business Association of Michigan recognized her as Small Business Advocate of the Year. She went on to chair the association’s board. In November 2024, she joined its foundation board alongside networking adviser Derek Dickow, extending her involvement into an organization focused on resources and programming for small businesses.

The community involvement predates those later appointments. In 2014, the account of Edge’s recognition described its founders volunteering with food banks, Junior Achievement and Rotary. The business and the civic commitments were developing alongside each other.

AARP Michigan appointed her state president in 2023, succeeding Chris Holman. The position is the organization’s senior state volunteer role, working with the state director, staff and volunteers on advocacy and programs. She also serves on the Michigan Chamber’s board. These commitments give her work a constituency beyond the agency’s accounts: business owners, volunteers and Michigan residents whose interests need a hearing.

The editor returns to the microphone

There is a pleasing turn in her newer work. The journalist who moved into communications is asking questions again. With Becky Burtka, she co-hosts BOLD LeadHERS on the Michigan Business Network, a program about women’s leadership. Its subjects include the decisions, obstacles and working relationships behind a career.

In an episode published in August 2026, the hosts spoke with Rebecca DeVooght and Sarah Hubbard about policy, higher education and advocacy. The questions included what makes partnerships effective and how trust develops in changing political environments. For someone who has worked in a newsroom, the Capitol and her own company, those are subjects with familiar practical consequences.

An interview with Chris Holman published in September 2026 brought the attention back to her own decisions. She described deliberate growth, an agency team of ten and event management accounting for roughly half the business. She also credited mentors and allies, including Holman, with helping her find the courage to start. The company was approaching its twentieth anniversary; the appetite for growth remained tied to what clients actually needed.

By then, her story contained enough awards and appointments for a respectable wall. Its more revealing details were smaller: the colleague who proposed a business, the local arts connection in Marquette, the old client still on the books. Rishar Jandron has made a career in communications. The durable part is how often the conversation continues.