Fernando L. Brinn is President of The Brinn Group, one of the leading Marketing, Public Relations and Real Estate consulting firms in the NYC region. Mr. Brinn launched the organization in 2004, to expand and build upon many years of successful experience and relationships developed in the government, corporate, non-profit and community business sectors.
Mr. Brinn was appointed Executive Director of the Higher Education Development Fund in New York State, a position he held from 1980 – 1982, until he was appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo to the position of Assistant Regional Director for the office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. During his tenure with Governor Cuomo, he was instrumental in actively increasing the number of minorities employed in state government and into positions of leadership.
In 1992 he launched his own company, F. Brinn and Associates, providing an array of services for individuals seeking training and job placement. Through its Work Force Development Institute, the company serviced over a thousand individuals annually. In 1999, F. Brinn and Associates established a subsidiary company, to provide services to individuals with disabilities in New York City and Bridge Port Connecticut. In 2001 “Crain’s New York Business” magazine named Mr. Brinn as one of that year’s top entrepreneurs. Mr. Brinn’s extensive professional work, educational background and deep understanding of mental health, poverty and homelessness issues in the community, served as the catalyst to launch The Brinn Group, with a focus on servicing the needs of the underserved populations in NYC.
A native New Yorker, Fernando L. Brinn was born in East Harlem to parents who migrated from Puerto Rico in the early 1930’s. He was raised in the Bronx and attended Bronx Community College of the City University of New York and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Mr. Brinn holds a Bachelors and Masters in Social Work. He worked a number of years in the field of Psychiatric Social Work, beginning at Bellevue Hospital and later at the Bronx Psychiatric Center. His Master’s thesis was based on a year’s worth of research and work with the skid row population in the Bowery. Mr. Brinn thesis on the skid row population, a subculture, is on file at the library of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.