October Luncheon with guest speaker, Christopher FitzHenry Robling

The International Press Club of Chicago is proud to announce the start of our Fall 2019-Winter 2020 "Visiting Guest Speaker Series"

Our first guest speaker is nonother than Chicago's very own Christopher FitzHenry Robling's career includes experience in media, government, agency public relations and politics. He joined Jayne Thompson and Associates as its first Principal in April 2002.

Mr. Robling has executed communications campaigns for a wide variety of corporate and institutional clients, focusing on class-action defense litigation. His work has been honored by a Silver Anvil, two top awards from the American Public Transportation Association and an Addy Award. He also is a recipient of a Peter Lisagor Award for his work on WMAQ-AM, then a CBS-Infinity all-news station.

Mr. Robling led the Republican members of the Chicago Regional Transportation Task Force in 2004, authoring their Minority Report. He is a former senior official of the Regional Transportation Authority and has spoken on urban mobility issues in Paris, Stockholm and in the United States.

Mr. Robling recorded the definitive interview of Mike Royko for WBEZ-FM. He has interviewed Henry Kissinger, Tom Wicker, former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Gene McCarthy, then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Anatoly Dobrynin, Warren Buffet and Tom Wolfe, among others. Since 2004 he has been the WGN-TV Morning News Republican analyst.

Mr. Robling speaks frequently on professional and public issues and has lectured at the University of Chicago, Northwestern's Kellogg and Medill schools, DePaul and Roosevelt Universities. Mr. Robling graduated from Georgetown University and attended Northwestern University School of Law.

APD co-founder Christopher FitzHenry Robling is Principal and Vice President for Public Relations, Communications, and Government Affairs. Mr. Robling has served as an aid to several Members of Congress, a Commissioner of Elections for the City of Chicago and a senior executive of Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority. As commissioner in the early 1990s he advocated widespread adoption of imaging technology to streamline data processing in relation to election administration. At RTA, he worked with Raytheon on a groundbreaking PRT application, which led to some of the Smart Car technology being used today. He is the recipient of several awards in journalism and communications. He has been WGN-TV’s Republican analyst since 2006, an anchorman at WMAQ-AM and a longtime program host and substitute host at WBEZ-FM. Two Illinois Congressmen asked him to join their Suburban Transportation Commission, and he led the minority on Chicagoland’s 2004-5 Northeastern Illinois Regional Transportation Task Force. In corporate communications, he has assisted a long list of major firms in complex matters of regulation and litigation, including matters as diverse as preventing a $12 billion appeal bond to assisting the first bank acquisition using Sec. 363 of the federal bankruptcy code. He graduated from Georgetown University in economics and philosophy and studied law at Northwestern University.