Meet Our Team

Story & Reach Communications co-founder Natalie Pawelski specializes in story. She dives deep into understanding where clients are coming from and where they want to go, develops powerful messaging, and writes compelling content, from op-eds, talking points and press materials to web copy and social media posts. She works with a team to develop strategic communications plans, and to respond to unexpected opportunities and unforeseen crises.

As vice president and senior writer at Cater Communications, Natalie helped scientists, social justice activists, business leaders, national security experts, elected officials and others voice their views, primarily on issues related to climate change and clean energy.

As CNN’s Environment Correspondent and host of the award-winning program Earth Matters, Natalie reported from the White House to Yellowstone and from Appalachia to Times Square. Her work was also featured on CNN.com, CNN Radio, and CNN International. Natalie was elected to the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists, and served on advisory boards for the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation and the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources.

Natalie also served as Vice Consul for Political, Press, and Public Affairs at the British Consulate-General in Atlanta. Her responsibilities included media relations, crisis communications and public diplomacy in six Southern states. She also produced videos for use at Foreign Office embassies and consulates worldwide.

Natalie was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, earned a master’s in journalism from Columbia University, and graduated cum laude from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. She taught journalism and media ethics at Oglethorpe University, and has spoken at colleges and conferences in the U.S. and abroad.

Natalie and her husband, John Rogers, live with their fabulous daughter in Atlanta. Natalie is a regular panelist on the GPB radio program On Second Thought. She volunteers as communications chair for the Ansley Park Civic Association and serves as co-chair of the neighborhood’s mystery book club.

Story & Reach Communications co-founder Carina Daniels specializes in reach: developing and executing strategic communications plans that generate influential coverage and frame the public conversation. She works with a team to tell clients’ stories in ways that resonate, and to deliver the right messages to the right audiences.

As assistant vice president at Cater Communications, Carina secured coverage in outlets from AP and Reuters to the New York Times, PBS NewsHour, USA Today, NowThis and dozens of other local, online and broadcast media across the country.

On behalf of conservative organizations and national legislators’ groups, Carina organized tours by retired admirals and generals who explain the links between energy policy and national security. She coordinated private meetings and public events with politicians, government officials, voters and the media. Working with climate scientists, Carina arranged media tours and desk-side background briefings on topics including the politics of climate change and the connection between climate change and extreme weather.

Carina’s public relations career started with the Think Outside the Bottle campaign at the University of California-Berkeley, where she earned degrees in English Literature and Conservation and Resource Studies. She also gained media relations experience at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland and Pacific Environment.

Carina lives in Center City Philadelphia. She enjoys running and volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Christina Heartquist’s new consultancy Heartquist Strategies acts as Cater Communications’ ultimate utility player. As Senior Project Director at Cater Communications, Christina’s work covered the spectrum, ranging from leading projects to pitching news media to planning events, and she has worked with all kinds of clients, from local businesses to national nonprofits.

A diligent researcher and planner who specializes in bringing in events on time and on budget, Christina develops and executes strategic communication plans, works on websites, manages grant money, helps clients with social media outreach, and travels across the country on behalf of Cater clients.

Christina started her career as a public relations assistant at the publishing company Harper San Francisco. She earned a B.A. in English from Dominican University, winning an academic excellence award for writing and publishing. Christina, her husband Tim and their two children live in Novato, California.

Cortney Piper is a senior consultant for Cater Communications in Tennessee. She also serves as a political commentator for Tennessee this Week, an East Tennessee ABC affiliate’s political roundtable.

Piper co-founded Tennessee Business Leaders for a Clean Energy Economy. She was also part of the Cater Communications team that created strategic communications plans for similar business networks over a 15 state region, to amplify the voice of the clean energy industry during federal climate and energy debates. The networks collectively totaled over a thousand companies representing a broad spectrum of industry and commerce.

As a result of her expertise in the clean energy industry, Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu called on Piper to assemble a clean energy business roundtable during his trip to Memphis.

An active member of her community, Cortney sits on the board of the East Tennessee Economic Council and the University of Tennessee Political Science Board of Advisors. She also chairs the City of Knoxville’s Better Building Board and is a member of the Energy, Technology and Environmental Business Association’s government relations committee.

Cortney graduated cum laude from the University of Tennessee, with degrees in Political Science and Sociology. She was a scholarship student athlete (Lady Vol), co-captain of the swim team and received all SEC academic honors.

Washington-based Senior Consultant Chelsea Henderson has 20 years of experience striking bipartisan compromise on federal energy and environmental policy. Chelsea has worked on and off Capitol Hill with lawmakers, officials, and an array of stakeholders, from the regulated community to environmentalists.

Prior to launching her own consulting firm, Chelsea Henderson Ventures, Chelsea was executive vice president at McBee Strategic Consulting, where she provided advocacy services to Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, non-profits and investors advancing new energy technologies. Before that, she was a partner and senior associate for Vela Environmental, where she advised clients on legislative and administrative action on energy policy and climate change.

Chelsea served as senior policy advisor for then-Senator John Warner (R-VA) during his push to enact climate change legislation. She also worked as a professional staffer to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during the chairmanships of the late Sen. John H. Chafee (R-RI) and former Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH).

Chelsea is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Liberal Arts and School of Education. In her free time, she blogs, writes novels, teaches yoga, and parents her perpetually hungry preteen boys.

Roxanna Smith has worked extensively on vehicle fuel economy and clean cars media campaigns, engaging with nontraditional messengers including auto dealers, consumer experts, Republicans and others to tout the economic, health, consumer and national security benefits of cleaner cars. Roxanna led successful media campaigns that supported the passage of the California Clean Cars Program, the federal 54.5-mpg fuel economy standard and the federal 35-mpg by 2020 campaign. Roxanna regularly employs social media tactics to do direct outreach to reporters, promote clients, and forward ideas.

Before joining the Cater Communications team in 2007, Roxanna worked for nearly a decade across the country in the television news industry as an award-winning producer, writer and reporter. While working for FOX61 in Hartford, Roxanna was nominated for a Boston/New England Emmy Award for Best Newscast. During her time at NBC33 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Roxanna did a series of reports that sparked a state Attorney General’s investigation and a second series that sparked a change in local city codes. She won an Associated Press Award for Investigative Journalism for her efforts. Roxanna graduated with honors from Indiana University with degrees in Journalism and English Literature.