Last weekMcDonald's signed on Cronin and Company, a small, Glastonbury, CT-based PR agency, in a strategy to transcend its big corporate image and brand itself as a locally
owned business and employer. The agency handled PR for the Connecticut Lottery, which three years ago lost four senior managers to a deranged former employee. President Bill
Cronin says one of the worst things you can assume about a crisis is that it's over. Cronin also said he didn't see any connection with his agency's crisis experience and
McDonald's concerns with "Mad Cow" disease, which has thrown the European beef industry into chaos.
(Bill Cronin, Cronin and Company, 860/659-0514.)