Garland Pollard is a writer and editor who believes that the word is the center of any online or analog project or effort. He is editor of the Boca Beacon in Boca Grande, Fla., and has experience across all media, including newspapers, TV, radio, magazines and the web.
Content Management and Migration
He is editor of the Boca Beacon on Gasparilla Island, Fla., he is a also web publisher focused on content migration. He works in multiple languages and platforms including Drupal and proprietary legacy content systems. Part of his work is the launch of content for new websites, and workarounds from these old legacy systems.
A selection of websites where I led the process of content, including the conference center DaySpring, a green news website and a medical recall website.
He has worked to migrate both large websites, (including the official state VisitFlorida.com database) as well niche sites, to new platforms. From 2011-2021 he was communications director for the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida. There, he overhauled print publications and at the same time led the purchase, development and specs for marketing websites for the organization, and other non-profits associated with the diocese.
Web Proficiency
His website BrandlandUSA.com chronicles the business of America’s great legacy brands, and is the only website entirely dedicated to heritage brands. The project is a long-standing hobby, and focuses on vintage brands and trademarks.
He also assists his wife, Alice, with her restarted legacy fashion brand Jack Tar Togs. The brand is the circa 1916 original maker of the sailor suit.
There, he implemented an off-the shelf tech stack, mostly open source elements, and turned them into an e-commerce site.
State Editor and Business Writer
His work in writing and editing has run through his work. After summer internships at the Portsmouth NBC affiliate WAVY-TV 10, he began in newspapers at Richmond’s Style Weekly, where he wrote a pop culture and local interest column, as well as features. After Style Weekly, he revived the 150-year-old broadsheet newspaper The Richmond State, which was a leading newspaper in Richmond from the Civil War until the early 20th century. The new State, co-founded with Richmond attorney Benjamin P. A. Warthen, covered politics, society and culture in Richmond. He has worked as a staff editor at The Progress-Index in Petersburg, where he redesigned their weekly real estate section and edited the business page.
As a reporter, he covered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Langley and Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding as transportation and technology editor at Dolan’s Virginia Business Observer in Norfolk. He also covered real estate and urban planning at Richmond’s Inside Business.
At Inside Business, he won Virginia Press Association awards and created comprehensive survey of Richmond Brand Names. He also researched a definitive history of the then-threatened Reynolds Metals EXO headquarters building that helped bring attention to the value of the Gordon Bunshaft building, which was under threat of demolition for a big box store. The modernist gem of Skidmore Owings and Merrill building, former home to Reynolds Wrap, is now the headquarters of Philip Morris U.S.A.
In Virginia, he was the launch editor of Virginia Living, the magazine about Virginia that debuted in November 2002. The magazine proved the viability and relevance of old-style, large-format magazines like Look and Life in a time of web ascendancy.
Web Migration and Corporate Work
He was also senior editor for the Visit Florida family of products at Miles Media in Sarasota, Florida, where he revamped their 60-year-old Official Florida Vacation Guide and a some ancillary publications.
He also supervised the editorial side of the re-launch and entire content migration of their multimedia website, VisitFlorida.com, including pilot videos and the hiring of a slate of multimedia reporters. The project included social media testing, the hiring of a staff of new contributors, and the preservation of much original content from the original.
After leaving, he worked as a contract web consultant, case study writer and product researcher for non-profit and corporate clients, including fields such as banking, pharmaceuticals, medical recalls and ICD-10. He also served as web content manager for Capital One in Richmond.
Development and Corporate Communications
From 2012 to 2022, he was Director of Communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida, where he led websites , video and social media and public relations for 77 churches in Southwest Florida. There, he upgraded their corporate graphics and identity, revived dead publications, moved over 70 churches to online streaming, and helped individual parishes build and rebuild websites on multiple platforms, including Ruby on Rails.
To build consistency, he created an Episcopal Brand Handbook for church marketing, with companion web guide. While there, he upgraded fund-raising and yearly appeals. He led the personal contact collection for a Salesforce database of 20,000 households, used for annual fund-raising and contact management.
His volunteer interest is historic preservation and historic brands. He has had a long support of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, now Preservation Virginia, where he served on the board of its Historic Richmond branch.
With the critical support of Preservation Virginia, he helped to save two important neoclassical Richmond buildings, the Second Baptist Church and the gilded age Hotel Richmond, seen here. The hotel was built in 1904 by Adeline Detroit (“Addie”) Atkinson, a self-made businesswoman who secured financing from banking magnate J.P. Morgan to fund the project. The Hotel Richmond is now the Barbara Johns office building, named for a civil rights pioneer. His Preservation Virginia branch, Historic Richmond, funded the building study that made the case for its preservation. It now frames the corner of Capitol Square in Richmond.
Education
A native of Virginia Beach, he attended The Norfolk Academy and graduated from Woodberry Forest School. He attended the Virginia Commonwealth University and William & Mary and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond. He is blessed with three daughters, and wife, Alice..