Oliver Dorgan - VP Marketing & Communications, Visit Mobile
Oliver Dorgan spent his first fifteen years as a designer. He handled design and proposals at BES, spent more than eight years as senior designer at Southeastern Press, and worked as a graphic design artist at the University of South Alabama, while running his own photography and design business since 2005. Visit Mobile hired him as creative brand manager in 2019. He became creative director in 2023 and vice president of marketing and communications in October 2024. He describes destination marketing as an unusual challenge: the bureau measures success by its impact on businesses it doesn’t own, and promotes things it doesn’t control. A Spring Hill College graduate who has lived in Mobile most of his life, he comes from a family of competitive sailors and sits on the boards of the Mobile Arts Council and the Mobile Museum of Art.
Jim Berscheidt - VP Marketing & Communications, University of South Alabama
Jim Berscheidt spent fifteen years in television news, first as assistant news director and weather anchor in San Angelo, Texas, then for a decade at KENS-TV in San Antonio as weather anchor, hurricane chaser, and host of a weekly agricultural news show. He moved into communications for nonprofits and museums, then spent nearly eight years at the University of Denver, where he was primary spokesperson and helped bring a 2012 presidential debate to campus. The Oklahoma State University Foundation followed, where he created a TEDx event streamed in 31 countries. As chief communications and marketing officer at Creighton University he was named the American Marketing Association’s Omaha Marketer of the Year in 2019. After three years leading brand strategy at the University of North Texas, he joined the University of South Alabama in September 2022 as vice president of marketing and communications, overseeing teams for both the university and USA Health.
Marie Katz - Executive Director of Marketing & Communications, USA Health
Marie Katz owned a stationery company for sixteen years. She grew The Paper Menu into a national wholesale business with more than 200 accounts, and her work appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and Town & Country. She was also an art director at Sullivan-St. Clair Advertising and for Business Alabama magazine. The University of South Alabama hired her as assistant director of creative services in 2017, and USA Health brought her on as creative services director in 2019. She became interim associate vice president in 2022 and executive director of marketing and communications in November 2023. During those years the academic health system grew from fewer than twelve locations in two counties to more than forty sites in two states, including the acquisition of Providence Hospital. Her work has been recognized by the Telly Awards, Communication Arts, CASE, and the American Advertising Awards.
Devon Sellers Calametti - Director of Marketing & Communications, Mobile Airport Authority
Devon Sellers Calametti spent more than ten years at WTVY News 4 in Dothan, moving from producer to reporter to morning and evening anchor. She created the award-winning “60 Minute Miracle” segment spotlighting everyday heroes, and coordinated Alabama’s first Make-A-Wish telethon, which raised more than $46,000 over two years. The Mobile Airport Authority hired her as airport marketing coordinator in 2019, managing branding, sponsorships, and digital engagement across four aviation assets. She became director of marketing and communications in June 2023, during the construction of the new Mobile International Airport terminal. She launched BuildBFM.com as the official source for construction updates, directed major airline campaigns, and started signature events including a 5K run on the runway, all aimed at making Mobile and Baldwin counties see the airport as their own.
Laura Burton - Senior Director of Marketing & Communications, Gulf States Engineering
Laura Burton founded Agency VERGE in Mobile and ran it for seven years as president and executive creative director, building brands for clients as a full-service advertising boutique. Spring Hill College then hired her as director of visual content and brand identity, and she became the college’s chief marketing officer in 2021. After a year as director of marketing and communications for development and alumni relations at the University of South Alabama, she joined Gulf States Engineering in July 2023. There she helped define the firm’s mission, vision, and core values, launched a new website, rethought its trade show presence, and rebuilt its proposal process. Over more than 30 years in advertising and marketing she has won ADDYs, PRCA Medallion Awards, and national healthcare advertising awards, and received the American Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal for service to the profession.
Denise Curtis - Senior Director of Communications, Mobile Chamber
Denise Curtis started by producing “Live at Lunch” at WTVY, the station’s noon newscast, often taking the whole show live to small towns across the region. She then reported for WTVY and spent nearly five years as executive producer at WPMI-TV in Mobile, organizing coverage of Mardi Gras and hurricanes. The Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce made her communications director in 2016, and over six years she created the Explore Eastern Shore tourism brand, launched a campaign to support small businesses during the pandemic, and started the region’s first Young Professionals Summit. The Mobile Chamber hired her as communications director in December 2021 and promoted her to senior director of communications in June 2026. She serves as its media spokesperson and oversees the chamber’s brand across every platform.
Maggie Oliver - Chief Development Officer, Alabama Port Authority
Maggie Oliver began in Washington, managing state affairs for a national association of health insurance professionals and then working in communications for political organizations and a congressional office. She moved to Mobile in 2018 and spent three and a half years as senior director of government affairs at the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce. The Alabama Port Authority hired her in 2022 as director of internal and external affairs, promoted her to vice president within months, and named her chief development officer in January 2026. She leads the port’s marketing, communications, and economic development strategy, working with public and private partners to attract industry and shape supply chain investment, and has helped raise the port’s visibility statewide. She holds a master’s in public relations from Georgetown and is a Mobile Bay Magazine 40/40 honoree.
Morgan Cooper - Marketing Director, Wilkins Miller
Morgan Cooper started as a communications intern with the American Junior Golf Association, covering thirteen international tournaments, and became its marketing manager. She managed more than $500,000 a year in corporate sponsor relationships and on-site branding at more than 100 events. The University of South Alabama then hired her as a development officer, where she raised more than $150,000 for the colleges of nursing and allied health and established a nursing development council. Wilkins Miller, the Mobile accounting and advisory firm, hired her as marketing coordinator in 2015 and named her marketing director in 2019. Eleven years in, she leads marketing for one of the region’s established professional services firms.
Lesa Moore - VP Marketing & Public Relations, University of Mobile
Lesa Moore spent eleven years as director of marketing communications at Xanté, an international manufacturer of high-tech printers based in Mobile. The University of Mobile hired her in 2002 as executive director of marketing and public relations, and she has now been there nearly 25 years. She became vice president for marketing and public relations in 2016. She has also taught marketing at the university since 2007, first as an instructor and now as an assistant professor, after earning her MBA there and receiving its Honorary Fellows Award. Teams she has led have won advertising, public relations, and design awards from the Bay Area Advertising Federation, the Public Relations Council of Alabama, and the Higher Education Advertising Awards.
Tony Zodrow - VP Marketing & Development, Goodwill Gulf Coast
Tony Zodrow was the founding executive director of GulfQuest, the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico. He led the master planning, capital campaign, and launch of the $63 million interactive museum on Mobile’s downtown waterfront, the first maritime museum devoted to the Gulf as a region, which opened in 2015. Before that he spent eight years as deputy director of Science Museum Oklahoma, overseeing fundraising and marketing, and three as president and CEO of McWane Science Center in Birmingham. He has run five successful capital campaigns, won a Gold MAC award from the Giant Screen Theater Association, and wrote his master’s thesis on marketing science museums. Goodwill Gulf Coast hired him as vice president of marketing and development in 2023, bringing more than three decades of nonprofit leadership to one of the region’s largest social service organizations.
Selling a Place
Most of the people on this list market something bigger than a product. A port that wants new industry. An airport building a new terminal. A tourism bureau that promotes restaurants and festivals it doesn’t own. Universities, a health system, a chamber, a museum. It explains why so many came from newsrooms, where telling a community’s story on deadline is the whole job, and from design studios, where a place’s identity gets built one piece at a time. Mobile’s marketers tend to treat the city as their client, and their careers show how far that commitment can go.