Over many evenings in the first half of 1981 Rick Jasculca and his friend Jim Terman sat around Jasculca’s River Forest home talking about going into business together, forming their own public affairs oriented PR firm. Jasculca was fresh off a stint working as a lead advance man for President Jimmy Carter. Terman had worked for Vice-President Walter Mondale. The Carter-Mondale ticket had suffered a crushing defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Morton Kaplan and Associates, the public relations firm Jasculca worked for, had been sold to a big company that Jasculca wasn’t excited about working for.
Then one summer evening as Jasculca and Terman were once more sitting in Jasculca’s living room mulling things over yet again Jasculca’s wife Judy came in with some treats. Judy had tired of the indecision and the incessant talk.
“You two get off your f#@*ing asses and go and do this,” Judy Jasculca told them.
So they did. Soon Jasculca Terman Strategic Communications was open for business. The firm quickly evolved into what is now the preeminent public affairs public relations and event management firm in Chicago. Jasculca is the chairman and CEO of the firm.
“We are quintessentially a public affairs firm,” Jasculca said in a recent interview in his photo filled office in the River North neighborhood of Chicago. “We do public affairs, public policy, issues, crisis management and we also have a specialty in event management and international advance.”
Tonight Jasculca, 66, who still lives in the house he and Judy bought on Franklin Avenue in 1975 for $41,000, and Terman will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Publicity Club of Chicago at the club’s annual Golden Trumpet Dinner at the Palmer House Hilton. Delivering the keynote address at the dinner will be Jimmy Carter.
Jasculca’s office is filled with photos and other mementos of the extensive work he has done for Carter and Bill Clinton. In addition to Carter and Clinton Jasculca has also worked closely with former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel over his long and remarkable career.
Jasculca first was introduced to Jimmy Carter in 1975 by Lou Lerner, a publisher of a chain of neighborhood newspapers in Chicago. Carter was then a relatively little known former governor of Georgia while Jasculca was an experienced political advance man and press liaison even though he had yet to hit 30. In 1968, at the tender age of 21, Jasculca was the national press coordinator for Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign.
Jasculca decided to help Carter and was soon doing lots of advance work for him mostly working with the press. When Carter won the Democratic nomination Jasculca served as the lead press advance person for the Carter-Mondale ticket in the fall campaign.
Jasculca developed a close personal bond with Carter.
“He was almost like a dad to me,” said Jasculca whose father, a men’s clothing salesman, died when Jasculca was 20.
During the Carter presidency Jasculca became the go to advance man for many domestic trips and a few major overseas trips. Jasculca did the lead advance work for President Carter’s trips to Japan in 1979 and Rome and the Vatican in 1980 as well as during the 1980 fall campaign, when he advanced campaign trips for Rosalynn Carter while Carter employed the so called Rose Garden strategy.
Jasculca caught the political bug early.
In 1960 as a 12 year old seventh grader living on the North Side of Chicago, he volunteered for John Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He loved to help his precinct captain in the 40th Ward hand out campaign literature. In 1964, while still in high school, he was a co-chairman of Young Illinoisans for Lyndon Johnson. Two years later, as an 18 year old freshman at DePaul, he went to work for Adlai Stevenson III who was running for state treasurer.
“I just got bit by the bug,” Jasculca says. “I was just smitten with it.”
In 1968 he walked into the Eugene McCarthy’s Chicago campaign office and volunteered. In two months he advanced from Deputy Illinois Press Secretary to National Press Coordinator.
During the tumultuous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago the famous folk trio, Peter, Paul and Mary slept on the floor of Jasculca’s room on the 15th floor of the Conrad Hilton Hotel.
After Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 Jasculca went to work on Sam Shapiro’s campaign for governor. When Shapiro was defeated Jasculca was hired by Lt. Governor Paul Simon.
Jasculca was so busy with politics that he never found the time to finish college. He finally dropped out of De Paul after finishing about 2 ½ years of college.
“I kept blowing off class to go work in campaigns,” Jasculca said.
In 1971 Jasculca went to work for Morton Kaplan’s PR firm in Chicago and stayed there for 10 years, albeit with frequent absences for political and presidential work during the Carter years, until he and Terman founded Jasculca Terman.
“Anything and everything that I know about the business of PR and public affairs I learned from Mort,” Jasculca said.
In 1991 a friend suggested that he help out Bill Clinton who was preparing a run for president. Jasculca become Clinton’s lead press advance man and was with either Bill or Hillary Clinton nearly full time in 1992. Jasculca spent six intense weeks in New Hampshire during the New Hampshire primary campaign, where Bill Clinton, dogged by the Gennifer Flowers affair, came back to finish a close second to spark his successful run for president.
During the Clinton presidency Jasculca did the advance work for most of the president’s and first lady’s overseas trips including trips to India, China, Mexico and the Vatican (again), to name just a few.
“I did almost all of their international trips,” Jasculca said. “When they were on international trips I was the advance lead in at least one of the spots and usually I was the advance lead in the first place they went.”
If Carter was something like a father to Jasculca Bill Clinton was more like an older brother.
Clinton and Carter had very different personalities, and are not especially fond of one another, but Jasculca became close to both. While Carter, a former Navy officer was punctual and buses left right on time Clinton was habitually late.
But they shared some important traits.
“These are two really, really smart people,” Jasculca says.
More than once Jasculca was on the receiving end of one of Bill Clinton’s famous temper tantrums when Clinton’s face would turn red as he screamed about some perceived screw up or mistake.
“It was never about the big stuff,” Jasculca says. “It was always about some inane little thing. He really handled the big stuff amazingly well. I mean the big stuff never rattled him.”
Minutes after the outburst all was forgotten and Clinton would have his arm around him Jasculca recalls.
“You couldn’t help but love the guy for that,” Jasculca said.
Jasculca did all the important press advance work for Hillary Clinton 2000 New York Senate race and also helped out on Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Jasculca worked hard on Rich Daley’s 1989 mayoral campaign and he was Rahm Emanuel’s initial press spokesperson when Emanuel decided to run for mayor.
Jasculca’s close ties to Emanuel were forged during the 1989 Daley mayoral campaign and during Bill Clinton’s campaigns and presidency. Jasculca was in the news recently as the liaison between the producers of CNN’s Chicagoland series and the Emanuel administration.
Jasculca’s close ties to mayors and presidents haven’t hurt his business although he says his firm thrives because it does excellent work, not because of connections.
“I think clout is an overrated term,” Jasculca says although he admits that his work for Carter and Terman’s work for Mondale helped the firm get noticed right away. “I would rather be respected as a professional than be considered somebody that’s connected.”
Jasculca Terman focuses on developing a message and a public relations strategy for clients that include the late Maggie Daley’s favorite non-profit, After School Matters, the Chicago Community Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pfizer, and the American Medical Association just to name a few.
“We don’t lobby,” Jasculca said. “We’re helping shape the way issues are discussed in the public square. We work with the news media. Sometimes we help organize coalitions, sometimes we do constituency outreach, but we do not lobby. In fact frankly our single biggest source of business comes from lobbyists.”
Jasculca Terman has become something of a family business. Two of Jasculca’s four children, Lauren Foley who stage managed Emanuel’s mayoral inauguration and Andrew Jasculca currently work at the firm. The other two kids are also in the PR business. Daughter Aimee lives in New York and has done press advance work for both Bill Clinton and for President Barack Obama. Son Chris, who used to work for Jasculca Terman managing special events, now is the Director of Policy, Planning and Communications at Oak Park Elementary School District 97.
Jasculca, despite four back surgeries, has no plans to retire.
“I’m a very hands on person,” Jasculca says. “I’m involved in strategy and implementation.”
Jasculca is the go to guy in Chicago if you have a PR problem, especially if it involves public affairs.
“I’m probably the only Democratic, political PR advance operative in the city who hasn’t worked for him,” says Kitty Kurth who has done advance work for Vice President Joe Biden and Michael Dukakis and is the co-owner of a public relations firm in Chicago. “Everybody has worked for him and everybody should. He’s set up a great PR shop, a great place to train young public relations people, young Democrats.”
Jasculca was recently hired as a spokesman and communications consultant for the Chicago Area Project which has been under scrutiny for how it distributed $4.3 million in state anti-crime funds.
Jasculca still lives in that same River Forest home he bought in 1975 and has no plans to move.
Only now he lives there alone. Judy died a few years ago.
“When my wife passed away from ovarian cancer in 2010 three presidents called,” Jasculca said. “President and Mrs. Carter called, Bill and Hillary called and President Obama called.”
Judy played a large role at Jasculca Terman and completely remodeled their home on Franklin Avenue that needed a lot or work when they bought it.
Jasculca just wishes that Judy could be here to share tonight’s special moment with him when he receives the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I’m sorry that Judy is not here to see it because she played a tremendous role in getting us going,” Jasculca said.