MARLTON -- Her four years in the public relations department of Sun Oil Co. -- first as manager of media relations, then as manager of executive communications -- had been a blast.

But as she approached the Big Four O in 1982, Anne Sceia Klein looked around for new challenges.

"I was turning 40," Klein said in a recent interview, "and I started to say, 'What do I do next?' "

She could have waited around in hopes of landing an executive post at Sun, but she thought such a promotion unlikely in an era when women were a novelty in the boardrooms of corporate America.

Or she could parlay her 16 years of experience in PR, including the four years at Sun, into her own shop -- notwithstanding the competitiveness of the field and the high failure rate among small shops. She took the latter course, setting up her PR business in her Mount Laurel home with little more than a desk, a telephone and a typewriter.

"The thought of failure never occurred to me; it was never an option," Klein, a South Jersey native, said.

That one-woman shop evolved into Anne Klein & Associates, which 15 years later markets itself as the Philadelphia region's largest independent public relations firm.

The firm, now based in Three Greentree Center in Marlton, has 11 employees, including Klein and her husband, lawyer Gerhart L. Klein. She serves as president, and he executive vice president.

The firm has 20 clients who, according to Anne Klein, spend more than $1 million annually for public relations through her company.

What does it say for the area's PR industry when the largest independent firm has only 11 employees?

Not a whole lot, according Peg Lusco, president of Marketing Directions, a one-person Voorhees product-marketing firm, and president of the Public Relations Professionals of Southern New Jersey.

The trade association was founded in the mid-1980s to create networking opportunities and professional development for PR specialists in South Jersey.

"We thought they'd be everywhere, like sales people," said Lusco.

They thought wrong. People who did exclusively PR were a rarity, and the reason became clear.

"In today's environment, you have to be able to do more than one thing to survive," said Lusco, citing herself as an example. In addition to PR, she does marketing consulting and product promotions.

After only a handful of one- and two-person home-based operations had signed up, the association's name was changed about three years ago to the Professional Communicators of South Jersey, and the organization was opened up to all forms of communications.

That organization currently has 50 members who provide a range of marketing services -- including advertising, public relations, direct mail, promotions and graphic design.

Klein conceded that her firm is something of an anomaly with its limited focus on public relations counseling and strategic planning. However, she said she has been able to find enough work to sustain and grow the business partly because of an expertise in crisis management.

It's an expertise she developed at Sun during the height of the gasoline shortage in the early 1980s -- a time when the oil companies were on the defensive against a skeptical public.

"The questions were tough," Klein remembered. "There were rumors we were keeping [ oil tankers ] out in the ocean and the Delaware Bay waiting for prices to go up. . . . We answered them fairly."

Today, she seeks to "manage the reputations" of companies involved in such controversial issues as solid waste disposal, groundwater pollution, contaminated soil, toxic emissions and community-right-to-know legislation.

Her task isn't always easy, considering that many people have a negative perception of PR, said Klein.

For example, "when a politician wants to criticize another politician, he says, 'Oh, that's great PR,' or 'It's nothing but a PR tactic,' " she said.

She defended PR, saying, "It's getting down in the trenches to know what people are thinking, explaining to them who you are, and trying to find a common ground."

The New Jersey-American Water Co. in Haddon Heights is one of her mainstay clients. The company hired her in 1988 to help sell the controversial Tri-County Water Supply Project, a $200 million plan to bring additional water to areas of Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties.

Her mission was to convince a wary public that water from the murky Delaware River could be made safe to drink at a proposed treatment plant and that the company would do everything to minimize disruption during construction of some 40 miles of pipeline through 55 towns.

For eight years, ending with the project's completion last year, Klein & Associates cranked out regular informational newsletters and press releases; set up public information sessions and workshops; met in the trenches with concerned residents; and provided advice to company executives.

"Their firm has been first rate," said Daniel L. Kelleher, president of the New Jersey-American Water Co. "This is borne out by the fact that we have a continuing relationship with them."

Not all of Anne Klein's assignments involve crisis management. The firm also has done product publicity and special events for Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. Inc. in Princeton; Armstrong World Industries in Lancaster, Pa.; the National Association of Investors Corp., an investor-trade group in Madison Heights, Mich.; and ImaRx Pharmaceuticals, in Tucson, Ariz.

Of the firm's 20 clients, only four of them are local, said Klein, adding that it shows that a PR firm doesn't have to be located in a big city to succeed.

So far, her PR career has gone according to a story line that she began scripting following graduation from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in economics and from Penn's Annenberg School with a master's degree in communications in 1965.

Her resume includes stints in the PR departments of several Philadelphia companies -- including the forerunner to SEPTA, Girard Bank and the Aitkin-Kynett advertising agency -- before landing the Sun job in 1978.

Her former boss at Sun got her started on her solo career by giving her assignments for about six months.

In 1984, after two years on her own, she and nine other small agencies formed a consortium called Comsource -- an abbreviation of "communications source." Each member worked independently on small assignments and teamed up on large assignments.

"By putting our expertise together, we could pitch larger accounts," Klein explained.

The consortium collapsed in 1985. By then she was doing $350,000 worth of PR -- well enough to hire two other full-time employees, and to move out of her home. That year, her husband also gave up his job as a trial lawyer at a Philadelphia law firm to join her.

Now 55, and running a profitable shop, Klein isn't about to relax.

"I'd like to at least double the size of the business in the next five years to about $2 million, and 18 to 20 employees," she said.