Wills & Associates was founded in 1978 by George Wills. His mission: Combine the personalized attention, expertise and reasonable cost of a smaller PR firm with the broad range of services and wide scope of influence of a much larger firm. With experience as a vice president of the Washington, D.C., office of PR giant Hill & Knowlton, as well as director of public relations for The Johns Hopkins University under its President Milton Eisenhower, George launched the firm and began offering PR services to a wide range of clients, including Kraft General Foods, JCPenney, The Nature Conservancy, Raytheon, W.R. Grace and Ernst & Young.
In 1994, George’s son Brad joined the firm, and fostered its specialization in working with a wide range of technology firms. Wills & Associates’ technology practice has matured right along with the technologies themselves, beginning when the Internet and wireless revolutions were in their infancy. Since then, we have worked with a wide range of tech businesses, from software developers, information security specialists and wireless carriers to major pharmaceutical companies and biotech organizations.
Our wealth of experience in all facets of technology has enabled us to cultivate strong ties with the tech media community and effectively tell our clients’ stories, so they can meet their communications and business goals.
Since joining the firm in 1994, Brad has provided strategic public relations counsel to more than 100 organizations in the U.S. and around the world. He established and grew the firm’s technology business, which includes publicly traded companies, small to medium-sized private businesses and start-ups. His expertise includes media relations, strategic messaging, written communications and working with organizations to help tell their story in a manner that is most beneficial to their goals. Brad has an extensive network of relationships with local and national media, which makes it possible to reach audiences that matter most to clients. Prior to joining W&A, Brad worked for the Nature Conservancy at its international headquarters as director of Corporate and Foundation Giving, and served for several years as marketing manager for Eastern European & Soviet Telecom Report. Earlier in his career, he was a PR associate for Stanton Communications in Washington, D.C. Brad graduated from Hobart College in 1988, then spent two years teaching English as a Second Language in Taipei, Taiwan, and traveling throughout Asia and the subcontinent.
Gail has nearly 25 years of experience in journalism, public relations, public policy advocacy and marketing communications experience. Her writing spans the breadth of persuasive and corporate communications, including press releases, op-eds, contributed articles, white papers, speeches, earnings scripts, ad copy, corporate presentations and marketing collateral. She was a writer/researcher at the Washington Business Journal, a technology and telecommunications journalist for McGraw-Hill and other publishing companies, an expert business/technical writer for Nextel and served as vice president of communications, supporting public policy advocacy and trade show communications for COMPTEL (now INCOMPAS), a D.C.-based trade association. She has unique skills that help bridge the gap between advocacy and corporate messaging and trends in the media.
Henry has practiced strategic communications since 2008 in business, politics and government. He served as press secretary to the Governor of Maryland and Rep. Bob Ehrlich (D-Md.) on Capitol Hill. He also served as communications consultant to corporate clients at one of the nation’s largest business litigation law firms. He specializes in strategic planning, message development, media outreach and issue advocacy.
Renee is a strategic marketing communications professional with more than 25 years of experience advising federal government agencies, commercial companies and non-profit organizations. She writes strategic communications plans, feature articles, social media and website content, and copy for collateral materials. Her focus is on writing content to educate, engage and increase reach for the purpose of meeting an organization’s marketing and sales goals. She has written and edited content on a variety of topics for the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, General Services Administration, World Trade Organization, UNESCO, ExxonMobil, American Bar Association, Association of Proposal Management Professionals and many other organizations.