Bill Crane’s Weekly Column

Bill Crane is nearing 30 years as a senior communications strategist. He began his career in broadcasting, and later served in senior communications staff positions under Georgia’s Gold Dome as well as on Capitol Hill, working for two U.S. Senators and one Governor, in both major political parties.  Crane also has significant economic development experience, serving as Vice-President of Marketing and Communications for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and Forward Atlanta during Atlanta’s Olympic years.

During the prior decade, Crane was a Senior Vice President with the GCI Group, a global public relations firm, where he helmed client engagements for AFLAC, Cousins Properties, Deloitte Consulting, InterContinental Hotels Group, and Johnson & Johnson among others. 

Since the 2000 Presidential Election, Crane has become one of the southeast’s most visible political analysts and commentators, first with 11Alive News, Atlanta’s NBC affiliate, and now Channel 2’s WSB-TV Action News.  Crane added radio commentary in 2006, since providing analysis for WSB-95.5 FM as well as 750AM, and other CMG properties.  In 2009, Crane began a weekly and now syndicated political column entitled “One Man’s Opinion.”  In addition to his hometown newspapers in DeKalb County, The Champion (DeKalb’s legal organ) and DeKalb’s Champion Free Press, “One Man’s Opinion” appears in The Brunswick News, Our Town Gwinnett, The Darien News, AccessWDUN.com, WSBRadio.com as well as several dozen other print and online media outlets across Georgia.

Also in 2009, Crane opened his own shop, CSI Crane, LLC, providing a full range of marketing, public affairs, and communications services to individuals and corporations.  CSI Crane specializes in corporate reputation and executive visibility, strategic media relations and thought leadership, as well as crisis communications particularly well suited for the needs of highly regulated industries.

Crane is a graduate of the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia.  He remains an avid Bulldog fan, and the proud father of two daughters, and grandfather of twin boys.  He travels frequently for business and as a keynote speaker and is active as a board member on more than half a dozen non-profit organizations.  Crane lives in Scottdale, Georgia, the offices of CSI Crane are nearby in Decatur.

Weekly Column:

  • One Man’s Opinion, “Fun Family Feast Time,”
    Monday, November 25, 2024. -Bill Crane While I never really viewed our large, multi-generational, predominantly Irish-Catholic family as the Norman Rockwell portrait at Thanksgiving, as a child I always enjoyed the often raucous gatherings and holiday gorge-festivities, four generations deep, that were our Thanksgiving, Christmas and occasionally Easter holiday gatherings. Though we were…
  • One Man’s Opinion, “Stop the Squeal…”
    Tuesday, November 19.2024 -Bill Crane Four years ago, at about this same time, I was repeatedly telling many of my Trump supporting, GOP and conspiracy leaning friends… PLEASE stop this Stop the Steal crap.  President Donald Trump lost the election.  It was a narrow loss, in four battleground states including Georgia, but a loss nonetheless. …
  • One Man’s Opinion, “A Vote FOR the Electoral College,”
    Monday, November 11, 2024 -Bill Crane Our Founding Fathers were certainly not perfect. But the ‘American experiment’ of a constitutional republic still looks pretty good in my book. The Electoral College, like many of the foundations of our government, was a compromise. The framers of our Constitution debated for many months. Many…