I founded Don Martin Public Affairs in 1989 because of my passion for solving complicated public relations and public affairs issues. That passion is as strong today as it was more than 21 years ago.
My company was founded to help companies develop strategies to manage and solve critical issues, communicate internally or publicly about an issue or about their business, to help them deal effectively with the news media and social media, to deal with government-related issues, to plan for or deal with an emerging crisis, or to help with their public relations needs.
I provide senior-level consulting in public affairs and public relations in Austin and Central Texas. I also work with the best-of-the-best of related consultants in graphics, web design, social media, video,print, legal, public opinion polling and other disciplines. I am a past member of the Capitol Press Corp and am an active member of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Public Relations Society of American (PRSA) and Austin, and Texas Public Relations Association (TPRA). I won a TPRA ―Texas Silver Spur‖ award for my work with Sun City Texas in Georgetown.
In the community, I am currently a member of the Seton Williamson Board of Directors, Board of Envision Central Texas, and Executive Board of the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA). I am a past member of Board of Directors for both the Austin Chamber of Commerce and Georgetown Chamber of Commerce. I was a member of the Leadership Austin Class of 1984 and Chair of Leadership Austin in 1991. I founded the Austin Chamber’s Project Greenscape program, and co-chaired the Corporate Headquarters Task Force. I am on the steering committee of Take On Traffic, was co-founder and chair of Citizens for Mobility, and on the board I am a member of Opportunity Austin 2.0, and Round Rock Momentum.
In the past I worked with numerous campaigns including, among others, serving as Co-Chair and campaign manager for the 1993 Bergstrom Airport referendum, campaign manager for the ―Roads for Round Rock‖ ½ cent sales tax campaign, and campaign manager for the Dell Diamond / Round Rock Express bond referendum. And was co-manager for the 1991 Bruce Todd for Mayor campaign, and General Consultant for the 1994 Mayor Todd Re-Election campaign.
A portion of my public affairs clients are related to real estate and I have a personal background in real estate development as well. I was previously managing partner of Street-Martin Companies, and then Austin managing partner of Luedtke Aldridge Partnership of Dallas. I have personally built townhomes, residential condominiums,offices, office condominiums, and retail, but my primary activities have been in master-planned land development.Among other projects, I co-developed with my partner Bill Smalling two master-planned mixed-use projects – San Gabriel Village in Georgetown, and La Frontera in Round Rock.
Immediately out of college at the University of Texas at Austin (where I also worked in the Texas Legislature while attending school) I was an original founding partner in Legi/Slate, a computerized bill and vote tracking business that was later sold to The Washington Post. I also published and edited Texas Government Newsletter for five years, and wrote several compilation books on votes taken in the Texas Legislature, and The Guide to the 67th Legislature.