Anthony P. Galli
President & Senior Management Representative

Mr. Galli heads up a Princeton, New Jersey communications firm that began as Hill and Knowlton and is now an Associate Company of H&K, one of the world’s largest international public relations counseling firms.

A senior marketing communications executive with broad experience in public relations, financial relations, advertising and corporate planning, Mr. Galli also served as investor relations and corporate communications counsel to Total Research Corporation where he was a 10-year member of the Board of Directors before the company was merged with Harris Interactive. He is also on the Board of Directors of Experience-On-Tap, Inc., a Philadelphia area executive search firm, and the YMCA in Princeton, New Jersey.

Mr. Galli opened Hill and Knowlton’s 65th world office, serving two years as Vice President-New Jersey Manager. His clients included the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the New Jersey State Police, Bell Atlantic Software Systems, CYTOGEN Corp., First Boston, and the David Sarnoff Research Center.

Before Hill and Knowlton, Mr. Galli served two years as Vice President-National Marketing Director of Business Wire, where he served on the company’s Board of Directors. He spent two years as Senior Vice President-Director of Public Affairs at Bozell Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt and five years as Executive Vice President & Director of Albert Frank-Guenther Law on Wall Street. He also served as President-CEO of the financial communications firm of Charles Barker-Ayer Financial. He began his career as an advertising copywriter at N. W. Ayer in Philadelphia and became a Senior VP-Management Supervisor and the company’s Director of Public Relations before then moving to Wall Street.

A former U.S. Navy correspondent and combat veteran, Mr. Galli reported wars, executions, maritime disasters, coronations, Olympic Games, and other world events as a journalist for United Press International, the Associated Press, and TIME, Inc. He received his B.S. Degree in Journalism from Temple University and studied at Harvard and Pace Universities for his MBA. He was also an Assistant Professor of Managerial Marketing and Communications at Pace University, Iona College, and College of New Rochelle in New York.

Mr. Galli is a member of the Overseas Press Club of America, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Public Relations Society of America, earning five national PRSA Silver Anvil awards for his public affairs work for the U.S. Army, AT&T and DeBeers Consolidated Mines. He won five Emmys for network TV programming for AT&T and a number of Clios for his television commercials.

The Philadelphia-born writer served as a trustee of the American Boychoir School in Princeton and as a Director of Junior Achievement of America. He is a member of the National Investor Relations Institute, the American Association of Public Opinion Research, and on a more personal note, served as Commander of the “Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War” in New Jersey. He has published two books on the exploits of his great-great grandfather’s Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry regiment in Virginia and Gettysburg.

Mr. Galli was also special consultant to the Governor's Economic Development and Transportation Task Force in New Jersey as well as to the Office of Public Affairs of the U.S. Arms Control & Disarmament Agency in Washington.

Barbara A. Swab
Senior Partner

Barbara is the consummate professional, working in print and broadcast media relations and every other facet of the business while promoting such companies as American Airlines, Chrysler, Citibank, Harley Davidson, King Features, Minolta, Sea World, and Universal Studios.

Barbara served as Executive Vice President of Canfield, Holler & Partners, Inc. in New York from 1980 to 1986, before one of the partners left to pursue other interests. The agency was reorganized into Holler, Swab & Partners, Inc. and was relocated to nearby Jersey City, NJ, where Barbara was responsible for new business development, “big idea” generation, crisis management, press kit development, news and feature story preparation, newsletters, wire service stories and photography, and satellite press conferences.

Prior to these two entrepreneurial ventures, Barbara served as Vice President of consumer/marketing relations at Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon and Eckhardt Public Relations (now Weber/Shandwick) in New York. There she helped this smaller New York agency to become one of the ten largest in the U.S and receive industry recognition as “the fastest growing public relations agency in New York.” In addition to daily account management, Barbara liaisoned with the agency’s international operations and helped develop a 20-offices organization in the U.S., Europe and the Far East, supervising all projects emanating from each of these locales.

Barbara came to BJKE in 1986 from Harshe, Rotman & Druck Public Relations, now part of Ruder, Finn, NY, where she started as an Assistant Account Executive. She received her education from Thiel College in Greenville, PA., where she majored in English and German Studies.

Walter M. Sodie
Senior Partner

Walter Sodie has served public relations clients in such areas as health care, environmental affairs, human and social services, government and business organizations, and professional associations. He is also a New Jersey State registered lobbyist for Galli Associates-Hill and Knowlton clients in Trenton.

He became a consultant to Hill and Knowlton in March 1991 and later joined H&K's affiliate firm, Galli Associates. A former broadcast journalist, he also formed his own firm to provide speaker training to government and business-professional groups in New Jersey. Walt is a former news director of radio stations WCTC/WMGQ, New Brunswick.

During his tenure, WCTC was cited as New Jersey's outstanding broadcast news operation by such organizations as the Associated Press, the New Jersey Broadcasters Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

As a regularly assigned visiting lecturer at Rutgers University, Walt taught broadcast news writing and reporting and created a curriculum sponsored by the Department of Journalism. He received his degree in Business Administration from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA.

David E. Schemelia
Senior Vice President

Mr. Schemelia came to Galli Associates, Inc. from Financial Dynamics in New York where he was Senior Vice President Media Specialist responsible for coordinating coverage of such accounts as Immuneomedics, RehabCare, Therasence, Duane Reade, and GMAC Mortgage.

A former newsman with The Associated Press and United Press International, Mr. Schemelia also handled the national media campaigns for medical and corporate clients as Senior Vice President of Dan Klores Communications, Media Practice Manager of Burson Marsteller, and Vice President of Rubenstein Associates, all in New York. He represented the Fitzpatrick Hotel in New York and the Travel Business Roundtable chaired by Loews Hotel Chairman and CEO Jonathan Tisch.

Mr. Schemelia previously worked for the AP as Day Assignment Editor in New York and Washington, leading coverage for a team covering President Elect Clinton's transition during his last 15 days in Little Rock, AR; and supervising coverage of the White House and Capitol Hill. His 10 years at AP followed four years of White House coverage as Network Editor of UPI.

His journalism career also included two years as a staff photographer with The Daily Record in Parsippany, NJ, three years with The Times of Trenton, and four years with the Gloucester County Times in Woodbury, NJ.

Mr. Schemelia, an engineering major at Camden County Community College, is also an instrument rated private pilot. He is former president of the New Jersey Photographer's Association, Executive Board member of the National Press Photographer's Association, and winner of several awards of the Public Relations Society of America.

Fritz Marston is an experienced executive with over 30 years in marketing communications. Before joining Galli Associates as a Senior Partner in 1999, Fritz held management positions on all three sides of the marketing triangle -- agency, client and media. His media experience includes editorial, sales, and management positions with Psychology Today and Playboy magazines, and most recently, the Targeted Media division of TIME.

On the client side, Fritz worked for five years as Vice President, U.S. Marketing and Public Relations for Manpower, Inc., the world’s largest temporary help firm, with direct responsibility for field marketing, national account sales, and the company’s many PR activities. His client experience includes a wide variety of business-to-business marketers in the financial services, healthcare, hospitality and temporary help industries. His agency experience includes account management and P.R. responsibilities at Benton & Bowles and Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York, Grey-North (Grey Advertising) and D’Arcy MacManus & Masius (now DMB&B) in Chicago, and BVK/McDonald in Milwaukee.

Before moving to New Jersey in 1997, Fritz spent 13 years with BVK/M as Senior V.P., helping to lead the marketing communications agency from $12 million to over $100 million in billings. While there he also served as president of Sales & Marketing Executives of Milwaukee, Inc., the nation’s largest (500 members) and most successful affiliate of Sales & Marketing Executives International.

Fritz has lectured widely to student and business audiences throughout the U.S. on service marketing and strategic planning. A Brown University graduate, he is active in community service, having served on numerous volunteer committees and boards of directors.

Roberta Chopp
Senior Vice President

Roberta Chopp Rothschild is a public relations, writing and communications professional with 25 years of experience. She has facilitated both strategic and tactical marketing campaigns for clients, branding products or services to distinguish them from the competition, and converting target audiences to customers.

As a former English Literature instructor at The University of Michigan, she specializes in ghost-writing by-lined articles, feature pieces, newsletters, brochures and audiovisual presentations. In addition to generating national (The Today Show, New York Times, Wall Street Journal) and local publicity, she has also provided clients with other marketing materials and creative strategies for using them.

Roberta has developed and implemented successful image-and sales-building programs for clients in a wide range of industries, including dotcoms, tourism, market research, financial services, medical advertising, household products, fashion and foods. She has also arranged client speaking platforms and developed media-generating special events and programs.

Roberta supervised public relations campaigns for such major corporations as Procter & Gamble, Black & Decker, Eastman Chemical Products, Chesebrough-Ponds and Alfred Dunhill of London. while a manager at Rowland Worldwide, a New York public relations agency.

HOME | ABOUT US | SERVICES | FAST START TACTICS | KEY BIOGRAPHIES | CONTACT US

Copyright © 2004 by Gali Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved.