Biography

Dan Ward, APR, CPRC, is president of Curley & Pynn, leading a team of talented professionals providing advice and counsel to a wide range of clients, and offering experience in issues management, strategic communications, publicity and community relations.

An accredited member of the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) – whose Orlando Chapter named him the 2013 PR Professional of the Year for Career Excellence – and Public Relations Society of America, for which he served as president of the Orlando Regional Chapter in 2004, Dan has practiced public relations in Florida for more than 30 years. He earned FPRA’s highest designation as a Certified Public Relations Counselor (CPRC) in 2014. Dan has been with Curley & Pynn since 1995, and today directs the firm’s strategic communications and marketing programs and the teams that implement them, supervising programs for clients in the electric and natural gas utility, higher education, economic development, and insurance industries.

Dan came to Curley & Pynn from the public relations division of Ypartnership (now MMGY Global), where he managed publicity programs for such clients as the SSC Radisson Diamond cruise ship, Radisson Hotels International, Disney Institute, Hotel del Coronado, the Island of Saint Maarten and Premier Cruise Lines’ Big Red Boat.

He is a proud graduate of the University of Central Florida, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors in Journalism in 1992. He remains actively involved with the university, serving on the advisory board for the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, which inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2011. He also serves on the board of directors for Jonathan’s Landing Foundation, which is building the most comprehensive intentional community for adults with autism. Dan is a former board chair of UCF ALUMNI.

Dan and his wife, Rae, have two children: Megan and Makenna.