Bryan & Shuffler Launch Resolve Strategic Communications

Two New Jersey political veterans are betting that organizations navigating today’s tangled policy environment need more than a good press release. Daniel Bryan and Eric Shuffler have launched Resolve Strategic Communications, an Edison-based firm built around strategic messaging, crisis communications, media relations and integrated public affairs campaigns.

The firm will work with clients across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Resolve operates as an independent company but will run in strategic partnership with River Crossing Strategy Group, which maintains offices in Edison, Trenton and Jacksonville, Florida. That partnership gives Resolve access to more than two decades of experience in governmental and advocacy work from the jump.

Bryan, who serves as managing partner, brings credentials rooted deep in New Jersey’s political infrastructure. He was a key architect of Governor Phil Murphy’s 2021 reelection campaign, finishing work he had started during Murphy’s first run in 2017. After that initial campaign, Bryan joined the administration as Murphy’s first press secretary in 2018, then moved up to senior advisor for strategic communications in 2019. In that role he shaped messaging across all facets of state government, built media relationships at both the state and national level, and provided counsel on issues ranging from the state budget to major policy priorities.

Before his time in state government, Bryan served as chief of staff to Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer from 2009 to 2015. He grew up in Ringwood, attended Don Bosco Preparatory High School in Ramsey and graduated from the University of Scranton.

“We live in a rapidly evolving policy and economic environment,” Bryan said in announcing the launch. “Resolve Strategic Communications will help organizations communicate effectively within the ever-changing public affairs landscape, combining strong messaging, strategic thinking and disciplined execution to help clients achieve their goals.”

Shuffler, founding partner, brings a career that stretches from Capitol Hill to Trenton and into the aftermath of national tragedy. He began on the policy side in Washington, D.C., and later served as chief of staff to a United States senator. In New Jersey, he worked as counselor, chief policy adviser and speechwriter to two governors, Jim McGreevey and Dick Codey. He also held the post of chief of staff at the Department of Transportation and served as director of the New Jersey Office of Recovery and Victim Assistance following the September 11 attacks. Shuffler graduated cum laude from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.

Political observers have described Shuffler as “a longtime New Jersey political insider with strong relationships across the state” and a “public policy expert and the veteran policy hand you are looking for.”

The timing of the launch makes practical sense. New Jersey’s business and nonprofit communities are operating in an environment shaped by federal policy shifts, state budget pressures and public scrutiny that moves faster than most organizations can track. Crisis communications capacity, in particular, has become less of a luxury and more of a baseline need for any organization with a public profile.

For New Jersey employers, the presence of firms like Resolve matters beyond political circles. Companies in the state’s pharma corridor, its sprawling logistics sector and its hospital systems increasingly face regulatory pressure, workforce disputes and community relations challenges that require sophisticated communications strategies, not just traditional PR. Having advisers who understand how government actually works, from the inside, gives clients a different kind of edge.

Bryan and Shuffler have collectively spent decades at the intersection of policy, politics and public communication. They know how stories get shaped in Trenton, how federal decisions ripple into state agencies and how public perception can shift a negotiation before it formally begins.

Whether Resolve can build a sustainable book of business in a competitive market will depend on execution. But the firm’s founding partners carry the kind of Rolodex and institutional knowledge that clients in difficult situations tend to seek out quickly. In New Jersey, where politics and commerce are rarely far apart, that combination has real market value.