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 providing communication services at all organizational levels.  In this role, Garland provides editorial counsel and periodic contributions to www.dirt-to-dinner.com, a food blog devoted to promoting wider understanding of the modern global food system and the issues confronting it.  He also serves on the Washington-based Superior Business Firm Roundtable, notably as author of various articles, speeches and analysis of agricultural business issues and organizational leadership.  He also serves as an instructor across various professional development groups, including Canaan Ridge, specializing in reputation management as well as personal and organizational identity and branding.   In addition, he continues to provide personal counsel on private and confidential communications for a select group of individuals, notably long-time clients among the senior business leadership community.

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.