When Lynne Doll, president of Century City PR firm Rogers Group, died last year, founder and chief executive Ron Rogers lost a close friend – and his company’s succession plan.

The 67-year-old Rogers, a prominent figure in L.A. public relations, had long rejected buyout offers because he planned to turn his firm over to Doll, a partner and protégé nearly two decades his junior. But Doll’s death at 48 led to talks with potential buyers, and eventually to last week’s announcement that Rogers Group was acquired by New York-based Ruder Finn Inc.

“With my partner passing away, everything in the company changed,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that if something ever happened to me that our folks had something that was secure.”

The Century City firm will merge with Ruder Finn’s West Coast group, which includes offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Rogers will be president of the agency’s L.A. office, to be called Rogers Ruder Finn. The combined office will initially have close to 40 employees, with more planned hires expected to boost that number to around 50.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rogers founded what was then called Rogers & Associates in 1978, and hired Doll in the early ’80s. She quickly proved equally adept at crisis management and public education campaigns, and he eventually named her president. By the time of her death last year, she had become the heir apparent at the firm, which became Rogers Group in 2006. Doll had battled cancer, but was cancer free when she died suddenly.

“I was turning more and more of the company over to her,” Rogers said. “When Lynne was still alive, one of the exit strategies was that she would over time buy me out.”

A few months after Doll’s death, he started taking calls from potential buyers, and putting out some feelers of his own.

“The talks started after I got over the shock of it,” he said. “It was obvious to a lot of people we had to do something.”

One of those potential buyers was Ruder Finn, which over the past year has been looking to expand its presence in Los Angeles. Richard Funess, president of Ruder Finn Americas, has known Rogers for decades and called him late last year.

“It happened to be at a time when we were looking around to try and do something,” Funess said. “It took a while but we both saw the value of associating with one another.”

Troubled times

The announced acquisition follows a particularly rocky time in the firm’s history. In recent years, state and local budget cuts have hurt the firm’s government contracts, which account for about half of its business. In December, state budget cuts caused Rogers to lose its biggest client, First 5 California, which invests in services and programs for young children. Rogers had to lay off five employees in January, bringing the head count down to 30.

That’s a steep drop from the 70 employees the company had in 2005, according to data from J.R. O’Dwyer’s Co., a public relations trade publisher. The firm’s net fees dropped from $10.4 million in 2005 to $3.5 million in 2010.

Rogers called the period since Doll’s death one of the most challenging since he started his firm after splitting from his father, Henry, who co-founded the L.A. agency Rogers & Cowan, more than 30 years ago. But he believes the national platform provided by Ruder Finn would make the firm more competitive.

“In today’s environment, it’s tougher to operate with just one office,” Rogers said. “Even if we do national work for clients, the perception is we’re an L.A. firm, and so this opens up lots more opportunities.”

Rogers Group clients include Dole Food Co., Raytheon Co., Whole Foods Market Inc., and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s tobacco and obesity education campaigns. Those clients join a Ruder Finn/West client roster that includes Hyundai Motor Co., Logitech International S.A., Marvell Technology Group Ltd., StubHub Inc. and Treasury Wine Estates.

Jack O’Dwyer, publisher and editor of O’Dwyer’s, said the move would be good for both parties.

“It’ll give added strength to Ruder Finn’s L.A. office, because they’ve mostly been identified with New York,” he said, “and it puts Ron Rogers in with the fourth biggest independent firm in the U.S.”