Stop Eco Violence

In 2002, the Competitive Enterprise Institute co-sponsored a conference with the aggressive anti-green PR company Nichols-Dezenhall, which has since been renamed Dezenhall Resources after the retirement of one of its founders who spoke at the conference Nick Nichols.

The conference, titled "Stopping Eco-Extremism: A Conference On Legislative, Legal And Communications Strategies To Protect Free Enterprise" - featured a woman named Kelly Stoner who was billed as the executive director of Stop Eco Violence.

David Case, reporting on the event for Tom Paine wrote that her "speaker bio is cryptically brand-free: she's identified as a 'communications specialist' in Oregon, who 'has several years experience in the forest products and agriculture industries, where she has had to deal first hand with the threat of eco-terrorism'". 

It turned out that Stoner was a former media relations official with Louisiana Pacific and that the website address on Stoner's card - www.stopecoviolence.com - was later registered by the PR company, Nichols Dezenhall.

"In the middle of an interview, when confronted repeatedly about connections with Nichols Dezenhall, Stoner suddenly laughed nervously and said her cell phone was malfunctioning, although over the course of the next few minutes she managed to take TomPaine.com's phone number and answer any question that didn't relate to the PR firm," Case wrote.

The following morning Stonor argued that "Nichols Dezenhall is not driving Stop Eco Violence," and that her group was organized by a 'broad coalition' of concerned citizens whose names she couldn't release, lest they become "lightning rods."

She contacted Nichols "several times for PR counselling and that's the extent of our relationship." But when asked if the firm was helping with her group's Web site, Stoner snapped again: "Why do you ask that?" Curiously, Stoner says her "official" relationship with Stop Eco Violence began in February 2002. Nichols Dezenhall registered the Web site in November 2001. The article noted that "after this article was published, the domain registration for the site was put in Kelly Stoner's name".

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