About Garland

Garland West is a senior specialist in organizational communications, providing counsel and services to business and organizational leaders at the executive level.

Garland provides diverse organizational communication services for a client list that includes leading global names in banking and financial services, pharmaceuticals and biogenetics, agribusiness, telecommunications, executive search, board recruitment and manufacturing, as well as educational, public sector and humanitarian organizations. During his 30-year career, he has performed varied assignments in reputation management and public relations, media training and crisis management, financial reporting, brand development and market research, speechwriting and communication program design.

Garland worked for more than twenty years for Cargill, Incorporated, an international commodity, food, and financial company, serving as vice president of corporate public affairs, and director of corporate communications. His management responsibilities included such diverse areas as publications, public and media relations, crisis management communications, financial communications, speechwriting and special projects for the Office of the Chairman. During his Cargill career, he also worked as a government relations specialist in the company’s Washington, D.C., office, and as manager of Public Affairs for Cargill Europe, based in London.

He also was employed as a senior vice president and subsequently managing director for Enterprise IG, the international brand and identity firm, heading the firm’s Mid-America office in Chicago and leading the company’s brand team serving Ford Motor Company. He also has worked with the Infinia Group, a brand-based identity, strategy and communications firm headquartered in New York. Garland continues to work with leading agencies and consultancies on special projects involving his unique interests, experience and skills.

Garland also is president of WestWord Communications, a company focused on providing communication services at all organizational levels. WestWord staff members have experience in dealing with the media and crafting effective media campaigns and releases; crafting comprehensive brand and identity programs; providing editorial services, including speeches, magazine and newsletter copy, and other routine communications; website development; digital and print production; and presentation coaching. All WestWord activities are directly supervised by Garland.

Garland is an honors graduate of Wake Forest University and the Defense Information School at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, and has done graduate studies in news editorial journalism at the University of Missouri at Columbia.