Between his three jobs, Jeff Gorell keeps busy: He’s a partner in the Oxnard-based community relations firm Paladin Principle, an adjunct professor at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

At Paladin, the 36-year-old partner helps develop strategies for businesses and organizations as they interact with the public, media and political leaders. The firm helps companies reach goals such as securing a development permits, pushing through a ballot initiative or gaining higher community visibility and good will.

So what makes Paladin Principle, a recently launched public affairs and consulting company based in Oxnard, different from other firms offering similar services?

The group has the luxury of being choosy with its clients at least in part because three of its four founding members – Trueblood, Ernie Villegas and Lin Graf – are all retired. Jeff Gorell adds a splash of youthful energy at age 36. The firm, launched last September, has become something of a go-to company for mid-sized companies’ public relations needs, especially concerning pressing California issues. Its current roster of seven clients includes businesses as diverse as the Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., a company that provides affordable housing, the Gold Coast Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Limoneira Co., an agribusiness company, and Clearwater Port, the company vying to put a liquefied natural gas port off the coast of Ventura County with minimal environmental impact.

“We’re less like Aerosmith and more like John Fogerty: a little more grassroots,” Gorell said. “This community is very sophisticated. They’re not fooled by the gloss and pomp and circumstance of these larger run campaigns and issue management efforts. They see right through that. We connect with them one on one, one handshake at a time, one organizational summit at a time. That’s our method of

This was not your typical final.

Instead of taking an exam, graduate students in a public policy class this spring at California Lutheran University had to write their own statewide ballot initiative, then defend it before their classmates in a PowerPoint presentation.

The idea was to give students a first-hand look at the state's initiative process, said Jeff Gorell, a local attorney who taught the class at the Thousand Oaks university.

"We wanted them to do more than write a paper," Gorell said. "We wanted them to see that participating in the democratic process is not outside their reach."

After presenting their initiatives, which covered issues ranging from illegal immigration to healthcare reform, the class voted last week on the best to send to the state Legislative Counsel's Office, which will rewrite it in proper legal language.

On the heels of a firm PR push by Lemonwood Industrial Park business owners and others, a Santa Maria-based company has withdrawn its application to build an asphalt concrete plant in Santa Paula just north of the Santa Clara River.

Former Deputy District Attorney and Assembly candidate Jeff Gorrell of Gorrell Advocacy was retained by Citizens for Santa Paula’s Future, who feared the impacts of the projected 236 truck trips - up to 984 trips on peak business days - on Lemonwood Industrial Park enterprises.