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Don Meyer is the president of Westfourth Communications, a boutique marketing communications firm located in Alexandria, Va., where he provides strategic counsel, messaging, coalition-building, crisis communications and public affairs positioning for clients in a variety of sectors including healthcare, technology, finance, defense and aerospace.

For large organizations communicating complex issues to diverse audiences, Don specializes in producing strong content across a variety of products and platforms — white papers, reports, speeches, press materials and marketing collateral — that effectively synthesizes our clients’ ideas, policy positions, research and data.

Don’s 20-year professional history includes serving as a senior vice president at the international public relations firm Hill & Knowlton in Washington, D.C., where he directed the firm’s 22-person corporate practice group and served clients including Lockheed Martin, the Nuclear Energy Institute and HP. His career also includes three years as a communications strategist in the office of the Secretary of Defense, where he played a key role in formulating public affairs tactics during the September 11 attacks and in support of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Don’s previous experience includes six years on Capitol Hill, where he held communications positions with members of the U.S. House and Senate, including a post as press secretary to the chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Economic Policy and Trade. He was also a congressional campaign media advisor during the 1996 election cycle, and started his career as a beat reporter for rural newspapers in northern Wisconsin.

For his service at the Pentagon, Don received two awards from the Secretary of Defense: the Public Affairs Award for Excellence in 2003 and the Outstanding Public Service Medal in 2004. A strategic planning model he developed at the Pentagon was adopted as part of the permanent curriculum at the National Defense Information School at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Don holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism, and attended the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany. He serves on the board of Bridges to Independence, a non-profit that provides housing and support services for families experiencing homelessness in Northern Virginia.