As director of communications for The HFW Companies, Daniel Bates serves as the company’s brand champion, chief communications strategist, and content writer and editor, overseeing internal and external communications, publications, media relations, social media, and its Web presence.
Dan, a native of Pittsburgh, Pa., who now is based in Augusta, Ga., also provides communications leadership and guidance to HFW’s growing HFW Partner Network, supporting their communications strategies, media relations, corporate narratives, and Web content development and helping them all stay connected.
Previously, Dan served as strategic relations lead for Augusta-based CRANSTON, a civil/structural engineering, landscape architecture, land surveying, and planning firm serving South Carolina and Georgia since 1967. There, he oversaw the firm’s branding efforts, marketing communications, and outreach. CRANSTON joined the HFW Partner Network in 2022.
A former business writer and editor, Dan has spent much of his career providing corporate communications, brand management, content strategy and development, program development, media relations, and strategic planning across a diversity of industries, including the AEC industry, higher education, health care, technology, financial services, nonprofits, and publishing.
He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Writing/Journalism. He later earned a Master of Public Policy and Management degree from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.