Kurt Knaus joined Ceisler Jubelirer LLC in January 2007 as part of the firm’s expansion and entrance into the Harrisburg area. With more than a decade of experience in journalism, media relations and government communications, Knaus will serve as managing director, handling new business development and overseeing daily operations of the office at 227 State Street in downtown Harrisburg.

Since March 2003, he served as press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, where he managed a staff of 10 community relations coordinators in six regional offices across the commonwealth and a group of five writers and press aides at DEP’s headquarters in Harrisburg. Knaus was the primary contact for media relations at the 3,100-person state agency, conducting on-camera and on-air interviews and answering dozens of press calls and public information requests each week as spokesman on energy and environmental issues for DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty and Governor Edward G. Rendell.

Among his most significant recent contributions: helping to coordinate messages in a multi-agency effort to secure passage of the Governor’s $625-million voter-approved Growing Greener II initiative; promoting new clean energy programs that have granted more than $72.9 million and leveraged another $339 million in public and private investments for hundreds of alternative and renewable energy projects across the state; and countering aggressive campaigns aimed at weakening Pennsylvania’s Clean Vehicles Program and defeating the administration’s state-specific mercury reduction rule.

From 1995 to 2000, Knaus worked for the House of Representatives in the Democratic Legislative Information Office, where he served as assistant manager and senior editor before being promoted to the office of state Rep. Mike Veon, who at the time served as the Minority Whip, the second-ranking leadership position in the House Democratic Caucus. Knaus was Rep. Veon’s press secretary and director of communications for nearly three years prior to coming to DEP after Governor Rendell’s swearing in 2003.

A lifetime resident of Pennsylvania, Knaus previously was a news reporter and bureau chief for Venango Publishing Co. in northwestern Pennsylvania, and the science editor of Penn State's The Daily Collegian. He also has several freelance credits as a news reporter, photographer and radio broadcaster.

Knaus graduated in 1993 from Penn State University’s School of Communications with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism, a minor in history and an emphasis on general sciences. He also received a Professional Certificate in Environmental Management in 1999 from Duquesne University’s Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences.