The merger of two lobbying firms pairs a member of a fourth-generation Colorado Capitol family with one of the state’s longest-serving members of the lobby corps.

Henry “Corky” Kyle, who has lobbied at the state Capitol since 1981, and Lacey Hays, the latest of the Hays family to work at the Capitol, announced they have merged to create the Kyle-Hays Group, effective with the beginning of the 2023 session.

Kyle has represented “everyone and their dogs,” including animal shelters, Hays joked this week.

The two have been moving in the same circles for years, but only recently decided to make a two-year trial period into a partnership.

Hays got her start as an aide to Sens. Kevin Grantham and George Rivera, and then as an administrative assistant for Axiom Strategies, now HBS Colorado. 

There’s a family connection there, too. Axiom was born out of the lobbying firm Hays, Hays and Wilson, when Micki Hackenberger bought out Lacey Hays’ dad, legendary lobbyist Frank “Pancho” Hays, III, in 2003.

The other Hays was the firm’s founder, Frank Hays, Jr., who served as a state House representative and Republican Lieutenant Governor under Democratic Gov. Stephen McNichols in the 1950s, in the days before a gubernatorial candidate could pick their own running mate.

The first Hays to work in the state Capitol was her great-grandfather, Frank Hays, Sr., who served on the Colorado Supreme Court when the Court was still meeting in the state Capitol, Lacey Hays said.

She started her own lobbying firm, Legacy Consulting Colorado, after a short stint with the Stealey firm, founded by legendary Democratic strategist and lobbyist Wally Stealey. Hays worked with Stealey’s successor, Becky Brooks. 

Kyle said Pancho Hays was one of the first people he met when he got started at the Capitol, when he was working with the Independent Insurance Agents as both their lobbyist and executive vice president.

But it was Stealey who was Kyle’s mentor, taking him under his wing in those early years, Kyle explained.

Hays said when she left Stealey, she didn’t initially know what she would do. She decided to go out on her own, and took on as one of her early pro-bono clients substance abuse providers. That allowed her to connect back to her dad, who she said was a “white collar” substance abuser, and which eventually caused his death. “He survived a long time in the lobbying world but it took him out,” she said.

That’s led to success with representing the treatment community at the Capitol, she explained.

The reason for the merger is in part succession planning, Kyle explained. “I’ve been out on my own for a long time” since his previous partnership split up a dozen years ago.

“I came to the realization that at some point I won’t do this anymore.” He turned to a good friend, Kenten Kuhn of Blacktie Colorado, who recommended Lacey. She brought with her Bailey Kramer, who now serves as communications director.

As it turns out, the family connection played a role. Kuhn knew of Lacey from a conversation with an attorney who had been with her dad’s lobbying firm.

“We got together and decided to give it a try,” Kyle said. And when the time comes, he’ll be the mailroom boy, he joked.

“No, he’s going to be the president of Bingo,” Hays joked. (Kyle has represented the Colorado charitable bingo association for more than a dozen years.)

“It’s uncanny, after we started working together, how much we think alike,” Kyle told Colorado Politics. But what makes it exciting, is that he didn’t have to train anyone, he added. “We have fun doing this…we have the chemistry and the experience, and it just works.”

“We’re going to conquer everything before I’m gone,” Kyle said.