Jerry La Pointe
Managing Director | Global Communicators West Los Angeles, California

With three decades of experience in travel and tourism promotion, high tech strategic planning, special events production and communications marketing, Jerry La Pointe is one of America's most accomplished communications consultants. As head of Global Communicators' West Coast operations, Mr. La Pointe is also President of Spectrum Consultants, Los Angeles. Since 1985, the firm has served more than 300 clients in the entertainment, tourism, hospitality and high tech industries. Mr. La Pointe taught graduate and undergraduate business communications as a Professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business Management in Los Angeles. He is fluent in French and Spanish.

Michiko M. Morales
Senior International Adviser (Tokyo, Japan)

Senior Vice President Michiko Morales brings a decade of public relations and marketing experience in the United States and Japan to Global Communicators. An international public relations strategist, Ms. Morales has managed public relations campaigns for technology, consumer product, business consulting, defense contracting, and financial services clients. Prior to Global Communicators, she was vice president of Stanton Communications and supervised accounts that covered business process outsourcing, technology, defense contracting and consumer product industries. She held a number of public relations positions, including senior counselor and director of the Washington office of The Martin Agency/SLAY Public Relations. She is fluent in Japanese and has served numerous Japanese clients.

Patrick Davis
Executive Vice President

Patrick T. Davis is chief executive officer of Patrick Davis Partners, the consulting firm he founded in 1996. With his leadership, the firm has become a trusted advisor to senior executives nationwide and is known for achieving clarity on the complex positioning issues that drive brands, markets and media. Mr. Davis has led the growth of Patrick Davis Partners from its inception, and today manages the firm’s network of offices in Atlanta, Napa Valley, and St. Louis. He serves as a senior advisor to Global Communicators on brand strategy and positioning assignments. Patrick Davis Partners works with a wide range of national leaders in airlines, beverages, consumer products, entertainment, food, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, real estate and retail, among others.

Kiku Obata
Graphic Designer

Kiku Obata founded St. Louis-based Kiku Obata & Company in 1977. The firm is committed to effectively creating identities, places and ideas for clients by successfully integrating graphic design, architecture, environmental graphic design, interiors and lighting design. Ms. Obata is an adviser to Global Communicators on graphic design strategy and creation of graphic applications including corporate logos.

Luis Soto
Business Consultant

Luis Soto, a lawyer and business consultant, provides advice and counsel to Global Communicators’ investment promotion clients. Mr. Soto’s professional experience over more than a decade has focused on economic development, including investment and trade promotion, competitive analysis, public and private management, personnel supervision, media relations, and negotiations. A native of Venezuela, Mr. Soto was executive director of CONAPRI, the Venezuelan Investment Promotion Agency, from 1995 to 2001. He is now an independent consultant based in Orlando, Florida. His clients have included Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, Turkey and the Andean Community. Mr. Soto received his law degree from Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Venezuela and his MBA from the Venezuelan Graduate Management School.

James A. Crandall
Media Relations, Investment Promotion, Global Technology Issues

With 25 years of public relations experience, Jim Crandall offers Global Communicators’ clients extensive international media contacts, strategic media planning, product promotion, and expertise on technology issues worldwide. Mr. Crandall has worked with Fortune 500 corporations as well as top-ten international public relations agencies and organizations in the energy, high technology, telecommunications and pharmaceutical sectors. His marketing and publicity assignments have covered 25 countries. He is President of Crandall Communications, Inc., based in Washington, DC. Mr. Crandall holds a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University.

Steve Drake
Media Adviser

Steve Drake offers Global Communicators more than 25 years of experience developing and leading strategic, global communications programs for some of the world’s most recognizable and influential organizations. During his career, Mr. Drake has worked with major public relations firms and corporations on communications, public affairs and marketing programs in a range of sectors, including education, technology, consumer products, retail, financial services, and government. He offers special expertise in China-related programs, having launched and managed offices in Beijing and Shanghai as a Senior Vice President and Partner with Fleishman-Hillard International Communications in the mid to late 1990s. Mr. Drake is principal of Steven Drake Associates, LLC, a corporate communications and global business consulting firm based outside of Washington, DC. He holds a bachelor and master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, where he serves as an adjunct professor with the Department of Communications.

Paul Brandus
Media Adviser

Paul Brandus is a Strategic Partner and Media Adviser with Global Communicators, LLC. He is also owner and chief executive officer of Montrose Group, LLC, a Washington-based communications and marketing firm he founded in 2007. Montrose Group helps companies and organizations communicate effectively with clients, shareholders, employees and the media. Over a career spanning two decades, Mr. Brandus has worked in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, on Capitol Hill as a U.S. Senate staffer, Wall Street as the manager of shareholder communications for an investment firm, in network news as a producer for NBC and CNBC, and as a public relations executive, counseling Fortune 500 companies and foreign governments on a variety of strategic communications matters. Mr. Brandus also has extensive experience as a working journalist. As a Moscow-based correspondent for NBC Radio and the award-winning business and economics program "Marketplace," he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War. He has also reported from Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and as a transportation and business reporter for Washington, DC’s WTOP Radio, the top-ranked all-news station in the United States.

N’PR Communications Consultancy Co.
Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey

Based on Global Communicators’ long-term interest in Turkey and Turkish Cyprus, we have formed a strategic partnership with N’PR, a communications management agency with offices in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey. Founded in 1992 N’PR is one of the few communications companies holding the ISO 9001-2000 Total Quality Management System certificate. The agency shares with Global Communicators an abiding commitment to the highest professional standards and ethics. N’PR worked with Global Communicators in directing media publicity for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus.

Our Advertising Agency Partner

August, Lang & Husak, Global Communicators’ strategic advertising agency partner, is a full-service firm that shares a similar corporate culture and our commitment to excellence in communications. Launched in 1992, AL&H is based in nearby Bethesda, Maryland. Mike August, director of client services, has had a prolific career in front-line positions with Washington’s most successful advertising agencies. Bill Lang, a strategic leader in marketing, media, public relations and promotional tactics, is an active volunteer in the public service arena. Chuck Husak, creative director, is a strategic thinker at home in the studio, marketing meeting, or client’s office. He is a winner of advertising’s highest awards. Together, AL&H adds incredible synergy to our client projects that have an advertising, branding or promotional component.

Our Graphic Design/Web Development Partner

Global Communicators’ graphic design partner is Two Rider Design, a full-service design and marketing firm that specializes in corporate identity packages, branding campaigns and custom web site design and development. The agency offers our clients the competitive edge they need to distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace.

Whether a GC client needs a comprehensive review and analysis of its current marketing efforts or a freshening of its company’s logo and marketing materials, Two Rider Design has the knowledge and experience needed to take a project from concept to completion.

Two Rider, like Global Communicators, believes in working closely with a client to develop ideas and implement projects based upon a client’s needs and objectives while maintaining deadlines and budgets. GC shares with Two Rider a pride in the relationships we build, as well as the personalized attention we place on individual projects.