Kyle Parks brings a combination of high-level journalism, corporate and agency experience to his role as Principal of B2 Communications.
He focuses on both overall agency initiatives and client work for such companies and organizations as Valley Bank, Colliers International, HCI Group, Spoor Bunch Franz, and the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.
An expert on commercial and residential real estate, Kyle has been a longtime member of the National Association of Real Estate Editors. While working with the then-St. Petersburg Times, his 1999 story on nationally-known shopping center developer Mel Sembler earned him the first-place national Best Newspaper Report award in business from NAREE. Kyle has been involved with the Urban Land Institute for more than five years, and is marketing/PR chair for ULI’s Tampa Bay district council.
He also heads B2’s crisis practice and client media training, helping clients manage difficult situations by being open and forthright, while working to protect the organization’s reputation.
After a distinguished career in journalism, which included senior editing and reporting positions in the business news department of the then-St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), Kyle became Director of Corporate Communications for Walter Industries (now Walter Energy, WLT). At the time, Walter Industries had more than $1-billion in revenue and subsidiaries in homebuilding, coal mining, manufacturing and home financing.
Kyle handled crisis communications after a 2001 coal mining accident at Jim Walter Resources in Brookwood, Alabama, that claimed the lives of 13 miners. He also handled issues related to environmental problems and a violent employee strike at Sloss Industries, a subsidiary in Birmingham, Alabama.
Kyle also ran marketing and PR for two national real estate programs, for Jim Walter Homes, and for the land development division of Plum Creek (now part of Weyerhaeuser), the nation’s largest private landowner.
Kyle has a B.A. in history from Virginia Tech and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Tampa. He is a member of the University of Tampa Board of Fellows, and served as Chair in 2011-12.