This article profiles Rhett Hintze, a Pennsylvania-based business executive and former COO of Bravo Group, the largest privately held PR firm in the state. It covers his background, education, career arc, community involvement, and the legal matter that drew public attention in 2023 — including its resolution.
Rhett Hintze is a Pennsylvania-based business executive who served as COO of Bravo Group — the state’s largest privately-held PR firm — for over two decades, before launching StateSource, an advisory firm focused on state government procurement. He studied at Brigham Young University and Syracuse University and is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Who Is Rhett Hintze?
If you’ve searched for Rhett Hintze recently, you’re likely looking for one of two things: a profile of a Pennsylvania business leader with over two decades of operational expertise, or background on a legal case that made local headlines in 2023. This article covers both, honestly and completely.
Rhett Hintze is an accomplished executive with more than 20 years of expertise in business operations, public sector procurement, and organizational leadership. He’s not a household celebrity name, but within Pennsylvania’s public affairs and communications world, he built a quiet reputation as an operator who could scale organizations, cut waste, and modernize processes without losing the human element.
He’s also a community figure — someone whose life straddles the worlds of business leadership, public service, and religious community involvement. That combination is what made the 2023 legal charges against him both significant and, to many who knew him, surprising.
Rhett Hintze: Early Life and Background
Rhett Hintze was raised in Wisconsin alongside his three siblings by parents who deeply influenced his character. His father, an electrical engineer in the paper industry, and his mother, who devoted herself to raising the family, instilled in him a sense of discipline, integrity, and hard work.
That kind of upbringing — practical, values-driven, midwestern — shows up consistently in how Rhett describes his own approach to leadership. He talks about listening, patience, and team buy-in in nearly every professional interview he’s given. It doesn’t sound rehearsed. It sounds like someone who genuinely grew up being told that character matters as much as output.
After high school, he pursued higher education with clear intent. Rhett holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Brigham Young University and a Master’s degree in Public Administration with a focus on Public Finance from Syracuse University. Bilingual in English and Spanish, he approaches his work with a broad, inclusive perspective.
The combination of BYU and Syracuse gave him something relatively rare: a grounding in both private-sector business logic and the mechanics of how government actually works. That dual fluency would define his career.
Rhett Hintze’s Career: From State Government to Bravo Group
Before Rhett became a name in Pennsylvania’s PR world, he worked inside government itself. His professional journey began in public service within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Governor’s Office of Administration, where he was instrumental in shaping technology policies and implementing e-government initiatives.
That experience — learning how state agencies adopt technology, how procurement works, and how bureaucracies resist change — gave him an insider’s toolkit that would prove valuable when he moved to the private sector.
From 2001 to 2024, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Bravo Group, Pennsylvania’s leading privately-held strategic communications firm. Twenty-three years in one organization, moving it forward at every stage. During that run, the results were measurable: Rhett played a pivotal role in the company’s growth, driving a 130% increase in workforce, streamlining operations with innovative technologies, and achieving a 15% reduction in annual expenses.
Those aren’t vanity metrics. A 130% workforce expansion while simultaneously cutting costs by 15% is the kind of dual achievement that defines what a COO is actually supposed to do. His strategic oversight helped Bravo Group become Pennsylvania’s largest privately-owned PR firm.
In a CEOWORLD magazine interview, Rhett reflected on his philosophy for operational transformation: he has a leadership style rooted in integrity and agility, and actively promotes a corporate culture that prizes empathy and collaborative teamwork.
He also offered unusually candid advice for the next generation of communications professionals: the most underappreciated skill in public relations is listening — actively listening to clients, stakeholders, and the public can provide invaluable insights that drive more impactful and meaningful campaigns.
StateSource: Rhett Hintze’s Next Chapter
After more than two decades at Bravo Group, Rhett didn’t step back. He pivoted. Rhett Hintze now leads his new venture, StateSource, providing state-level procurement strategies to companies seeking to enter or grow their state government business.
The logic is clean. His career began inside Pennsylvania’s government. It matured helping an external firm communicate with and influence that government. Now he’s helping businesses navigate the complex, often opaque world of state procurement — a space where his dual expertise in public administration and operational management is arguably his strongest edge.
In October 2024, he also launched a personal blog as a platform to share insights, experiences, and leadership strategies, and to tackle pressing topics in the public relations and communications industry. The blog targets professionals at every stage of their careers — from newcomers trying to understand the PR landscape to seasoned managers looking for sharper frameworks.
The 2023 Legal Case: What Happened and How It Was Resolved
Any comprehensive profile of Rhett Hintze needs to address the news that drew the broadest public attention to his name.
Pennsylvania State Police charged Rhett Hintze, a lobbyist and stake president of seven area Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints churches, with being aware of but not reporting child sex assault allegations against a Lebanon County church leader. Police alleged that Hintze knew about the allegations against the other church leader as early as October 2020, nearly two years before that individual was arrested, and that Hintze failed to report the abuse to authorities.
The charges — failure to report or refer, a third-degree felony — were filed under Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law, which expanded significantly in 2014 following the Jerry Sandusky scandal to include more categories of mandated reporters.
The case attracted significant local media coverage. Bravo Group placed him on leave following the charges.
However, the legal outcome is clear: on June 7, 2024, the Dauphin County District Attorney’s office announced they would be withdrawing the criminal complaint against Rhett Hintze. Charges were dropped in June 2024.
No conviction followed. The criminal case closed. Rhett has since continued building his professional profile and new business venture.
Community Involvement and Personal Life
Rhett Hintze’s life outside the office reflects someone who takes seriously the idea that professional success and personal contribution aren’t in competition — they reinforce each other.
Outside his professional life, he actively contributes to his community through volunteer work with his church and local food banks, and supports educational initiatives at the Daraja Academy in Kenya. The Daraja Academy is a scholarship school for girls in rural Kenya — not the kind of cause most PR executives feature on their personal websites. It points to a genuinely international sense of service.
He enjoys road trips, horticulture, running, hiking, and skiing, and is a fan of F1 motorsports and college football.
He has spoken about the importance of balance with unusual directness for someone in his professional tier: “Success professionally is not as valuable if one is not focused on personal success. Maintaining balance and contributing positively in others’ lives, thinking outside of self, and ensuring family relationships are strengthened provides the foundation upon which professional success can be built.”
What Makes Rhett Hintze’s Profile Distinct
A few things stand out when you look at the full arc of Rhett Hintze’s career rather than any single chapter:
The government-to-private-sector bridge. Most PR executives come up through agencies or journalism. Rhett came through state government technology policy. That gave him a different frame on how institutions work and how communications can shape them.
The operational lens. His title was COO, not CEO or Chief Communications Officer. He was the person making sure the trains ran — managing costs, headcount, technology adoption. In an industry often led by creatives and strategists, his value was execution.
The service thread. Whether through his LDS leadership, food bank volunteering, or international education support, community investment appears consistently across his life — not as a brand exercise, but as a pattern.
The pivot at the right time. Leaving Bravo Group after 23 years to launch StateSource wasn’t a retirement. It was a repositioning, taking the most transferable part of his expertise — understanding how state governments buy things — and building a specialized firm around it.
Conclusion
Rhett Hintze is a Pennsylvania business executive whose career sits at the intersection of public affairs, operational leadership, and government procurement. His 23-year tenure at Bravo Group produced measurable growth. His new venture, StateSource, reflects a deliberate choice to build something smaller and more focused. The 2023 legal case, which ended with charges dropped, is part of the public record and belongs in any honest accounting of who he is.
What’s left after the full picture is someone whose professional reputation was built on competence and consistency — and whose next chapter is just getting started.
FAQ
Who is Rhett Hintze? Rhett Hintze is a Pennsylvania-based business executive, former COO of Bravo Group (Pennsylvania’s largest privately-held PR firm), and founder of StateSource, a state-level procurement advisory firm. He was raised in Wisconsin and educated at Brigham Young University and Syracuse University.
What is Rhett Hintze known for? He is known for his 23-year leadership of Bravo Group’s operations, growing the firm’s workforce by 130% while reducing annual costs, and more recently for founding StateSource. He also attracted public attention in 2023 due to criminal charges that were subsequently dropped in June 2024.
How old is Rhett Hintze? Based on public reporting, Rhett Hintze was approximately 50 years old at the time of the 2023 criminal case filing.
What is Rhett Hintze’s educational background? He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Brigham Young University and a Master of Public Administration (with a focus on public finance) from Syracuse University.
Were charges against Rhett Hintze resolved? Yes. Criminal charges filed against him in early 2023 for alleged failure to report were formally withdrawn by the Dauphin County District Attorney’s office on June 7, 2024. No conviction was entered.
What is StateSource? StateSource is Rhett Hintze’s current business venture, helping companies develop and execute strategies to enter or expand within state government procurement markets.
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