Quick Facts
Biography
Charles R. Gerow, is a prominent American strategic communications professional. Called "Harrisburg's most politically well-connected conservative" by Harrisburg Magazine, Gerow is the CEO of Quantum Communications, a Harrisburg-based public relations and public affairs firm.
In 2010, Politics Magazine named him one of the most influential Republicans in Pennsylvania. He was also named one of the Top Ten Political Consultants in Pennsylvania by PA2010.com. In 2013, Campaigns and Elections named him one of ten Pennsylvanians to their prestigious "Influencers 500" list.
Gerow holds a law degree from Villanova University School of Law and has been a Pennsylvania attorney for over 35 years. Gerow began his career on the campaign staff of President Ronald Reagan and continued to do political work for President Reagan throughout the next 25 years. He was an Alternate Delegate At Large at the 1988 Republican National Convention, elected as a Delegate to the 2004 and 2012 Republican National Conventions. and an Alternate Delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention. He has attended every Republican National Convention since 1976.
In 1989, he helped to found the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. During the 1996 presidential election, Gerow was a surrogate speaker for Bob Dole. In 2000, he was a candidate in the 2000 Republican primary to represent Pennsylvania's 19th congressional district, where he lost to Todd Russell Platts.
Gerow serves as the First Vice Chairman of the American Conservative Union, and on the boards of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge and the American Swiss Foundation.
He has taught as an adjunct professor at Lebanon Valley College, Dickinson College and Gettysburg College. He works as a political analyst for WHP-TV (CBS 21) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He regularly hosts radio talk shows and has appeared as a political commentator on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business and several national radio programs. He was the subject of a feature on CNN’s “Inside Politics” television program and regularly appears on C-SPAN and the Pennsylvania Cable Network.
Gerow was appointed by the President of the United States to the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Commission, and appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett to the Governor's Advisory Council on Privatization and Innovation in 2011.
In 2005, the political website PoliticsPA posted a tongue-in-cheek feature similar to "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". The feature was called "The Six Degrees of Charlie Gerow", where the editors connected Gerow to various celebrities, including Hillary Clinton and Jessica Simpson.
He was a spokesman for filmmaker Carlton Sherwood during the controversy surrounding Sherwood's anti-John Kerry film Stolen Honor. He fellow conservative activist Jeff Lord founded QubeTV, a conservative alternative to YouTube. He also represented the electronic voting machine company Accupoll in their attempts to sell voting machines in Pennsylvania following passage of the Help America Vote Act. Gerow represented "Bring our Taxes Home," a group created to expand gaming in Pennsylvania.
On November 15, 2009 Gerow was chosen to head the transition team for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, mayor-elect Linda D. Thompson, the first African-American female elected to the office.