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Our Team
For three decades, McAlister Communications has been dedicated to helping our clients build, protect, and enhance their message and reputation. Located in Columbia, South Carolina, our team has been counselors to presidential campaigns, advisors to elected officials on the state and national levels, and strategists for some of the nation’s top brands and organizations.
Bob McAlister
President
Bob has spent four decades in the nation’s media-political axis as a strategist in crisis management, media relations, communications planning, grassroots organization and public policy issues. A former broadcast and newspaper journalist, Bob has an intimate knowledge of both sides of the reporter’s notebook – a critical advantage for clients in the public eye. Bob also understands crisis communications. Chief of Staff to Governor Carroll Campbell, Bob is familiar with the role effective communications plays in the public realm.
In 1989, he was responsible for all communications before, during and after Hurricane Hugo’s devastating strike on South Carolina. Since then, he has served as a public relations and communications consultant for well-known political figures in South Carolina such as Senators Strom Thurmond, Lindsey Graham, Governor David Beasley and many legislative leaders. He was also a communications consultant in the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Senator John McCain.
For nearly 20 years, Dave has been centered in the world of media and public policy outreach. As a former journalist and award-winning multimedia producer, Dave knows and understands the expanding world of communications and media outreach. His experience as a television journalist, former Communications Director for the SC Senate Republican Caucus, and political television commentator brings unique insights to clients about the ever-changing world of communications in the business, political, and community marketplaces.
Dave’s understanding of the psychology of advertising in the converging worlds of traditional and social media gives him a unique, competitive advantage in promoting clients, their ideas and viewpoints in today’s interactive, media-driven world of public relations, politics and public policy.
Dave Wilson
Chief Strategist
Desireé Watson
Association Management
Desirée has more than a decade of experience in public policy research and outreach. As the former Research Director for the SC Senate Banking and Insurance Committee, she not only drafted legislation, but also developed legislative and regulatory strategies for the Senate, including the framework through which the State Senate would work to implement the necessary changes under the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act.
Prior to her work with the Senate, Desirée was Director of Operations for a lobbying firm based in Columbia, SC where she oversaw press and policy briefs and provided direct support to key lobbying efforts for the firm. She also has experience in large-scale trade association management where she administered several successful community action programs.
Her political background includes working for several statewide and congressional races in the Palmetto State and serving as the congressional liaison for Presidential Classroom, a civic education program in Washington, DC. She also has experience working as a key fundraising principal on state and national campaigns.
A graduate of the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Economics and a cognate in Public Relations with an emphasis in Crisis Communications, Desirée has developed integrated marketing communications strategies on the business and political level that bring results.
Gettys has been a consultant with McAlister Communications for nearly a decade and is President and CEO of the South Carolina Boating and Fishing Alliance (SCBFA). As the former President of the University of South Carolina Bass Fishing Team, Gettys won the College Fishing National Championship, and became a two-time College Fishing All-American and FLW Cup Qualifier. During his time at USC, Gettys worked as a journalist for B.A.S.S. and JM Productions. His work has been published internationally and featured in numerous outdoor publications and major networks, including the ESPN family of networks, NBC Sports, B.A.S.S. Times, and Bassmaster Magazine. In 2022, Gettys was named to Boating Industry Magazine’s 40 under 40.
Before Gettys’s work in the outdoors industry, he interned for South Carolina Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler as a communications aide for the South Carolina Senate Republican Caucus. Since that time, his work with McAlister Communications has included serving as the Communications Coordinator for the Bass Anglers Sportsmans Society (B.A.S.S.), where he helped journalists tell the greatest stories of sportsmen and sportswomen across the United States, founding and developing the SCBFA, and focusing on environmental and natural resources issues in the public arena.
Gettys received his B.A. in Mass Communications focusing in Advertising and Visual Communications from the University of South Carolina. Gettys currently serves on the executive committees of the S.C. Center for Fathers and Families Board of Trustees, a statewide nonprofit focused on providing fathers with the means to be great dads, the Youth Corps SC Board of Directors, a nonprofit in Columbia focused on developing leaders of tomorrow, and on the Board of Directors for the Capital City/Lake Murray Country Regional Tourism Board. Gettys is a native of Gaffney, S.C.
