With the hiring of a former White House staffer and other new employees this spring, Colorado lobbying firm Sewald Hanfling more than doubled the size of its team and added public relations work to its offerings.

The firm hired Gordon Bronson, who’s worked on several Democratic campaigns and spent a year working on presidential appointments for the Obama administration, to be its director of strategic communications.

The Denver-based firm, which was founded in 2012 and represents clients such as Wal-Mart, Deloitte, Adams State University and marijuana dispensary Medicine Man, also added three other staffers, bolstering its team to seven employees.

To work on state and local affairs, Sewald Hanfling brought on Leslie Green, who trained and worked as a professional chef in Omaha before getting a law degree at Creighton University.

The firm also hired Wes Friednash, who worked most recently as a marketing intern for Denver International Airport, to focus on issues related to municipal governments and to support the firm’s new strategic communications efforts.

Sewald Hanfling also promoted Shannon Fender, who’s been with the firm since 2013, to senior associate for state and local affairs. She’ll continue to focus on policies related to marijuana, transportation, higher education and other industries, but will have more client-facing responsibilities.

“As a firm, we have developed a brand and a business that provides services at the state and local level, and because of that, we had the opportunity to look at some expansion,” said R.D. Sewald, who co-founded the firm with Josh Hanfling.

Sewald added that Bronson’s understanding of the political world is a “tremendous resource” for the firm and its clients. Before working for the Obama administration, Bronson worked for Ken Salazar at the U.S. Department of Interior and on Sen. Michael Bennet’s campaign.

Before launching the business, Sewald was a strategic advisor and director of government affairs for Gov. John Hickenlooper. He also worked for Hickenlooper when he was mayor of Denver and for former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb. Sewald has also worked on several Democratic campaigns, including Roy Romer’s 1994 bid for governor, Webb’s 1995 mayoral run and Hickenlooper’s campaigns for mayor and governor.

Hanfling, who ran unsuccessfully for the Colorado House of Representatives in 2007 in the Democratic primary against Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver, has been involved in the Colorado political, business and nonprofit world for more than two decades. He served as founding CEO of an international health, education and culture foundation and owned a Denver-based sign and graphics company. Hanfling was also involved in Hickenlooper’s mayoral run and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s campaign.

Bronson, who launched his own public affairs and political consulting practice in 2015, brought several clients with him to Sewald Hanfling, including software company Hyprloco and Skill Distillery, a coding school.

“A lot were on the tech side,” Bronson said of the clients he had at his firm, GoodAgency. “(I was doing) a lot of really fun stuff with some of Denver’s most interesting tech startups and there’s a great crew of really interesting CEOs we get to work with.”

In his new role, Bronson said he plans to look for broader stories and narratives within the Denver ecosystem to share locally and nationally.

He said it was a privilege to work for a firm that is “woven into the fabric of the Denver community.”

“I’ve known Josh and R.D. for years and love and respect both of them a ton, and I have a great deal to learn from their experience and the work that they’ve done,” Bronson said. “They’ve had such powerhouse careers here so it’s really fun to get to watch them work and be a part of this team.”