Ernie Stetenfeld, consultant to Jonathan Lehrer Communications, LLC, is president of Stetenfeld Associates, LLC, a Madison, Wis.-based consulting firm providing a wide range of communications services to meet the strategic and tactical needs of business, association and nonprofit clients. Stetenfeld also works as the director of community relations for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul – District Council of Madison, a nonprofit charitable organization serving neighbors in need in Dane County, Wis.
Until mid-2005 Stetenfeld was vice president of corporate relations for AAA Wisconsin, the motor and travel club serving the state’s nearly 600,000 AAA members. He left AAA Wisconsin to found Stetenfeld Associates after nearly 18 years of directing the club’s public-policy advocacy; public, media, government, community and member relations; traffic-safety services; member magazine production; and Web-site development. Stetenfeld feels his most significant work while he was with AAA was marked by the success of advocacy efforts on the part of the club and partner organizations for Wisconsin’s graduated driver licensing law. The GDL law has been helping to reduce deaths and injuries among teen drivers and their passengers in Wisconsin since 2000.
Stetenfeld is immediate past president and a current board member of the Safe Community Coalition of Madison and Dane County. He is also a member of the Pastoral Council for the Catholic Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin. Other positions have included:
Stetenfeld’s awards include:
Stetenfeld holds a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Drake University and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and comparative religions from Northwestern University. He is licensed in Wisconsin as a lobbyist.