Tampa Bay Defense Alliance
One Team. One Voice. From the Beginning.
Since the Tampa Bay Defense Alliance was formed in 2012, HCP Associates has been part of its story, helping shape the organization’s original identity, building community support for MacDill Air Force Base, creating the MyMacDill campaign, contributing to the development of the Tampa Bay Trophy and, years later, repositioning and rebranding TBDA for a new generation of leadership.
It is a relationship built not around a single project, but around more than a decade of shared commitment to Tampa Bay’s military and defense community.
Tampa Bay Defense Alliance
Nonprofit Organization
Defense • Military • Economic Development • Community Advocacy
Active-Duty Military & Families • Veterans • Defense Industry • International Coalition & Partner-Nation Representatives • Government • Business & Civic Leadership • Tampa Bay Community
MacDill Air Force Base • U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) • U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) • Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) • Airlift/Tanker Association • SUN ’n FUN Fly-In & Expo • Tampa International Airport • University of South Florida • Port Tampa Bay • Tampa Bay Chamber • Regional Government, Economic Development & Community Organizations
Executive Summary
Some client relationships begin with an assignment. HCP’s relationship with the Tampa Bay Defense Alliance began with the organization itself. TBDA was formally created in January 2012 by civic and retired military leaders who believed Tampa Bay needed a stronger, coordinated voice for its defense community. Its founding leadership included media executive John Schueler, retired Brig. Gen. Chip Diehl, Attorney and former USF President Rhea Law and retired Col. Rich McClain. The organization was created to connect the civilian and military communities across an eight-county region and advocate for the people, missions and institutions that make Tampa Bay one of the country’s significant defense communities.
HCP was involved from the beginning. The relationships predated TBDA. HCP founder R. Patrick Hill and Schueler had known and worked with one another through Tampa Bay’s business and media community for years. Those relationships extended to Diehl, Law, McClain and others who would help shape the Alliance, giving HCP an unusually close connection to the organization from its earliest days. HCP helped create TBDA’s original brand and communications presence and remained involved as the Alliance evolved. That continuity ultimately produced one of HCP’s most ambitious community initiatives, MyMacDill, followed by work surrounding the Tampa Bay Trophy and, years later, a comprehensive strategic rebrand built around an idea that continues to define the Alliance:
One Team. One Voice.
Understanding the Landscape
MacDill Air Force Base occupies a unique place in Tampa Bay. It is not simply a military installation. MacDill is home to two Unified Combatant Commands, U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, along with the 6th Air Refueling Wing and dozens of tenant units. Its influence extends far beyond the gates through active-duty personnel, military families, veterans, defense contractors, international partners and businesses throughout the region. TBDA was established to help bring those constituencies together and create a stronger regional voice. Its founders understood something important: protecting and strengthening Tampa Bay’s military presence could not be solely the responsibility of military leadership.
The community had to understand what it had, and why it mattered. That challenge became particularly relevant amid sequestration, force reductions and continuing national discussion surrounding future Base Realignment and Closure actions. For Tampa Bay, the communications challenge was not simply demonstrating MacDill’s strategic or economic significance. It was making that significance personal.
Research
HCP’s work began by looking at MacDill from multiple perspectives, its history, missions, regional influence and the relationships generations of Tampa Bay residents had developed with the base. During strategic planning discussions, one historical date caught HCP Managing Partner Eric Polins’ attention:
April 16, 1941.
It was MacDill’s official activation date. It was also Polins’ birthday; a former US Marine.
That meant April 16, 2016 would mark MacDill Air Force Base’s 75th anniversary. Official Air Force history confirms that MacDill was formally activated on April 16, 1941 and that the date came to be recognized as the base’s official birthday. What might otherwise have been a historical footnote became a strategic opportunity. Instead of building a communications effort around the fear of sequestration or possible base closure, HCP proposed giving Tampa Bay something positive to rally around: 75 years of MacDill.
Research also revealed that some of the strongest evidence of MacDill’s importance was not contained in economic studies. It lived in people’s stories. Veterans who had served there. Military families who had called Tampa Bay home. Civic leaders whose organizations worked alongside the base. Residents with photographs, memories and family histories stretching across generations.
Those personal connections became the foundation of MyMacDill.
Years later, when TBDA was ready to evolve its own identity, HCP returned to research, examining the regional and statewide defense environment, organizational positioning, stakeholder needs and how the Alliance could more clearly communicate its role. That process informed a new brand platform and complete corporate identity system launched in early 2020.
The circumstances changed. The principle did not. Understand first. Communicate second.
Strategy
HCP deliberately chose not to create a conventional military advocacy campaign. We created a community pride campaign. MyMacDill invited Tampa Bay residents, veterans, active-duty personnel, military families, businesses and civic leaders to tell their own MacDill stories through photographs, videos, memories and personal experiences.
At the center was MyMacDill.com, envisioned not simply as a campaign website but as a growing digital archive of Tampa Bay’s relationship with the base. HCP spent months producing more than 42 broadcast-quality video vignettes featuring leaders and organizations throughout the region. Participants represented government, business, higher education, tourism, economic development, community organizations and Tampa Bay’s professional sports franchises. One of those voices was retired four-star General Tommy Franks, former Commander of U.S. Central Command and already a longtime HCP client.
HCP’s relationship with Gen. Franks predated TBDA. The relationship began through work surrounding Pepin Heart Hospital and grew to include his personal brand and communications, American Soldier, Franks & Associates, and the General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute & Museum. In 2016, HCP also completed a renewed brand and online presence for Franks & Associates and the Institute and Museum.
His participation created a particularly meaningful connection for MyMacDill: a former CENTCOM commander helping tell the story of the installation that remains home to the command he once led. The overall strategy changed the nature of the conversation. Instead of asking residents to understand sequestration, BRAC or federal defense policy, MyMacDill asked something much more human:
What does MacDill mean to you?
Marketing
MyMacDill was designed to live far beyond a website. HCP developed an integrated regional campaign encompassing public relations, video, digital communications, social media, outdoor advertising, airport media, transit, radio, television, print, events and strategic partnerships. The campaign and MacDill’s approaching anniversary generated attention from media and organizations throughout the region, including the Tampa Tribune/TBO, Tampa Bay Times, WTSP 10, FOX 13, Military.com, University of South Florida, Tampa Bay’s economic-development community and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
MyMacDill moved beyond paid communications and became part of the region’s broader civic conversation.
Taking the Campaign Into the Sky
One activation made that visibility impossible to miss. Working with SUN ’n FUN Aerospace Expo, HCP helped conceive and coordinate a nine-aircraft Warbird flyover honoring MacDill and drawing attention to MyMacDill. The formation included a B-25 Mitchell, four T-6 Texans and four Yaks, traveling from Lakeland across Downtown Tampa and Bayshore Boulevard before passing MacDill Air Force Base and Tampa International Airport.
Executing the flight required much more than a creative concept. It required aviation planning and coordination involving the Federal Aviation Administration, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa International Airport and SUN ’n FUN to address routing, controlled airspace and the approvals necessary to execute the flight safely. What began as an advocacy campaign became a literal salute over Tampa Bay.
HCP extended MyMacDill further through branded materials, social engagement, community events, a MyMacDill Challenge Coin and “Mac,” a campaign mascot that brought the initiative into events, meetings, chamber functions and community gatherings. And the campaign traveled well beyond the region. A 2015 Florida Defense Support Task Force presentation reported 1.5 million MyMacDill hits from 39 states and 29 countries.
From Campaign to Institution
MyMacDill was never the entire TBDA relationship. Years after helping establish the Alliance’s original identity, HCP was asked to help evolve TBDA for its next chapter. With new leadership in place, HCP conducted regional and statewide secondary research, evaluated organizational positioning and developed a new strategic brand platform for consideration by the board. Following approval, HCP created a full corporate identity system supported by sales collateral, public relations, website development, social media and digital marketing tools. The new brand launched in early 2020. At its center was a remarkably simple articulation of TBDA’s purpose: One Team. One Voice.
It captured the Alliance’s role as a connector among military leadership, government, business, defense industry and the Tampa Bay community. And it endured.
Today, TBDA remains led by retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Lawrence M. Martin Jr., and HCP continues its relationship with the Alliance; TBDA’s current website credits HCP Associates with its design and maintenance.
The Tampa Bay Trophy
HCP’s involvement with TBDA also extended beyond traditional research, branding and marketing.
The agency participated in the early development of the Tampa Bay Trophy, including concept discussions and the search for an artist capable of translating the idea into a permanent symbol of the relationship between military installations and the civilian communities supporting them. The finished trophy is a one-of-a-kind bronze eagle created by Tampa sculptor Steve Dickey. Since its creation in 2015, the Tampa Bay Trophy has recognized one civilian each year for distinguished service and contributions to Air Force servicemembers and their communities.
The story eventually came full circle.
Rhea Law, one of TBDA’s original founders, went on to become the eighth president of the University of South Florida, serving from 2022 to 2026. In 2025, TBDA and the Airlift/Tanker Association selected Law from nominees representing more than 30 air-mobility communities as the recipient of the Tampa Bay Trophy for her longstanding support of MacDill, military members and their families. A founding member of the Alliance ultimately received an honor created by the organization she had helped establish.
Leadership Through Change
Long relationships are ultimately relationships with people. HCP’s connection to TBDA began alongside longtime colleagues and friends including Pat Hill, John Schueler, Chip Diehl, Rhea Law and Rich McClain. As the organization matured, another generation carried the mission forward.
Tim Jones, a U.S. Navy veteran and technology entrepreneur, served as president of TBDA during the extraordinary disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jones had served eight years on active duty before building his private-sector technology career and later served as both TBDA president and vice chairman of the Florida Defense Alliance. Even during the pandemic, TBDA continued initiatives including the Tampa Bay Trophy, adapting the 2020 presentation to a virtual format. TBDA’s current leadership history remembers Jones In Memoriam. For the people at HCP who knew and worked with him, his loss was personal as well as organizational. TBDA continued forward through another generation of leadership. And although the names and leadership roles have changed, the relationship has not.
Impact
Helped shape TBDA’s identity and communications from its inception in 2012, beginning a relationship that has continued across multiple generations of leadership.
Transformed concerns surrounding sequestration and future base realignment into a positive community strategy centered on MacDill’s approaching 75th anniversary.
Identified April 16 as the strategic catalyst for a yearlong community-engagement opportunity, building around MacDill’s official April 16, 1941 activation date.
Created MyMacDill as both an advocacy initiative and a living historical archive, giving military personnel, veterans, families and Tampa Bay residents a platform for their personal connections to the base.
Produced more than 42 broadcast-quality leadership stories, bringing together voices from government, business, higher education, professional sports and the military community, including former CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks.
Reached audiences well beyond Tampa Bay, with a 2015 Florida Defense Support Task Force presentation reporting 1.5 million hits across 39 states and 29 countries.
Built an integrated communications platform spanning television, radio, print, digital, social media, outdoor, transit, public relations and experiential marketing.
Generated sustained earned-media attention, moving MyMacDill into Tampa Bay’s broader civic conversation.
Helped execute a nine-aircraft Warbird flyover involving coordination with the FAA, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa International Airport and SUN ’n FUN, creating one of the campaign’s most visible public moments.
Participated in the development of the Tampa Bay Trophy, which grew from a Tampa Bay idea into a national recognition of exceptional civilian support for Air Force personnel and their communities.
Returned years later to research, reposition and rebrand TBDA, creating a new identity and integrated communications platform around One Team. One Voice.
Maintained the relationship from TBDA’s founding generation through its current leadership, with HCP continuing to support the Alliance today.
What We Learned
The most meaningful client relationships are not measured by the length of a campaign. They are measured by what remains after the campaign is over. HCP has been part of the Tampa Bay Defense Alliance’s story since its inception, working alongside the people who created it, helping establish its identity, building community support around MacDill and contributing to traditions and platforms that continued long after their launch.
We watched MyMacDill grow from an insight in a planning meeting into a campaign that reached people across the country and around the world. We helped develop the Tampa Bay Trophy, which grew from a Tampa Bay idea into a national recognition of the bond between Air Force installations and the communities that support them. We helped shape the Alliance’s original identity and, years later, were trusted to rethink it. And along the way, we have had the privilege of working with generations of people we knew not simply as clients, but as colleagues and friends, including some who are no longer with us.
Through all of it, one idea has remained remarkably consistent: One Team. One Voice.
For HCP and the Tampa Bay Defense Alliance, it isn’t simply a tagline. It is more than a decade of shared history.