LOGAN — Utah State has named William Plate as the university’s first vice president for marketing and communications. Plate currently is vice president for communication and chief marketing officer at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina, where he has served since 2013.

Prior to Coastal Carolina, Plate was director of university marketing and creative services at Florida Atlantic, where he developed the university’s overall communications and marketing strategy and collaborated on individual plans for the university’s 22 divisions and colleges.

“Bill has a proven track record of providing successful strategic marketing direction and producing innovative, and effective, communications at two other institutions,” USU President Noelle Cockett said in a statement.

Plate will be responsible for developing and implementing an overarching plan for marketing and strategic communications at USU that reflects the university’s land-grant goals and that reflects the university’s core educational values.

Plate received a Master of Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University in 2009, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in professional photographic illustration in 1999 from Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. He is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Public Relations Society of America and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Education Advancement and Marketing, a peer-reviewed journal written by and for professionals in the areas of marketing and communications, alumni relations, development and fundraising for educational institutions.

Plate begins work at USU on Jan. 11.