CRA is a Full-Service, Smart Brand Communications Agency

We’ve been helping organizations build, shape, and promote their brands for more than 50 years. We deliver strategy, creative, digital, and media solutions for national, regional, and local partners. Our expertise spans a range of industries — such as energy, insurance, education, and healthcare — where we pair traditional experience with digital solutions.

We give a damn. Guided by our core values and commitment to results, we work as an extension of our clients’ teams to produce work that is smart, impactful and worth the investment.

We are intentional. We evaluate and plan, create and execute, then monitor and optimize to ensure communications achieve the right results.

We tell stories that resonate. CRA Film helps clients nationwide bring their stories to life through impactful video. CRA Forum equips spokespersons and leaders to deliver messages with clarity and confidence.

Our History

Better known as Charlie Ryan by those close to him, agency founder Charles Ryan was born a small-town West Virginia boy who went on to establish a communications firm legacy spanning four states. Ryan grew up in Keyser, WV, an industrial and railroad community that might seem an odd breeding ground for the kind of person who’d go on to thrive in public relations and advertising. But Ryan always found a way to connect with others, from his first job as a disc jockey for local radio to his initial career in journalism after attending West Virginia University.

He moved to Charleston and enjoyed an exceptional career in television news before deciding to make the leap to public relations and advertising by starting Charles Ryan Associates in 1974. While the leap was anything but guaranteed to succeed, within 10 years, Ryan was able to grow the company into the largest advertising and PR firm in West Virginia.