Donald G. Martin

Donald G. Martin a/k/a Don Martin (born April 18, 1954) is a public affairs and public relations consultant and real estate developer based in Austin, Texas.
Martin was co-developer of the La Frontera commercial center in Round Rock, Texas, managed successful campaign for Austin mayor, chaired the campaign for the Austin Bergstrom International Airport referendum to create the airport, campaign manager for the Round Rock Express stadium referendum, and in 2009 wrote an Austin history book featuring vintage Austin area postcards from his own extensive collection.
Early years
Born and raised in Baytown, Texas, Martin attended Robert E. Lee High School and Lee College before entering the University of Texas at Austin. While at the university, Martin worked worked in the Texas Legislature for Representative Joe Allen and interned with Congressman Robert C. “Bob” Eckhardt in Washington, DC.
In 1976, Martin co-founded Legi/Slate, an early computerized bill and vote tracking service for lobbyists to follow the actions of the Texas Legislature. It was later expanded to cover the United States Congress. In 1981, the partners sold Legi/Slate to The Washington Post Company but it is now published by Congressional Quarterly under the name State Net, providing data, legislative intelligence and in-depth reporting for government advocates.
Martin also wrote and published a weekly newsletter called Texas Government Newsletter, as well as A Voter's Guide to the Texas Legislature.
Don Martin Public Affairs
In 1989 Martin founded Don Martin Public Affairs in Austin, Texas,The firm has represented a number of corporate clients as well as managing campaigns for political and business clients including Tokyo Electron, Dell, The Southland Corporation, Del Webb, Sun City Texas, Waste Management, TXU, The Nature Conservancy of Texas, Longhorn Pipeline, AT&T Wireless, and the Round Rock Express.
Martin was the 1991 manager of successful Austin mayoral campaign, and general consultant for Todd’s successful 1994 re-election effort..
In 2001, Martin partnered with Trey Salinas and changed the name of the firm to Martin & Salinas Public Affairs. Martin sold his interest in the company to Salinas in 2008 and reverted back to Don Martin Public Affairs as an individual owner.
Community involvement
Martin is a current member of the Seton Williamson Board of Trustees, part of the Seton Family of Hospitals. During the 1980's, he founded the Austin Chamber of Commerce's Project Greenscape program, which replanted trees at the Texas State Capitol grounds, planted 50,000 trees in Austin, and replaced a number of trees along Congress Avenue.
Martin served as campaign chair for the Austin Bergstrom International Airport referendum, which in 1993 approved the airport's current location on the site of the old Bergstrom Air Force Base. He also led the effort to establish the Northern Edwards Aquifer Resource Council (NEARC), a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of the Georgetown Salamander population,
which later became the Williamson County Karst Foundation.
He is a member of and/or on the Board of Directors of numerous organizations including the Urban Land Institute, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy Austin Chapter, Hill Country Conservancy, Save Barton Creek Association, Austin Chamber of Commerce (Board of Directors), Georgetown Chamber of Commerce (Board of Directors), Real Estate Council of Austin (Board of Directors and Transportation Chair), Society of Professional Journalists, Public Relations Society of America, PRSA Austin (Board of Directors), and National Association of Real Estate Editors.
Real estate development
Martin has developed numerous Central Texas real estate projects with business partner Bill Smalling (1952-2009). He and Smalling developed the 52-acre San Gabriel Village project, a commercial center in Georgetown, Texas located on the San Gabriel River.
The pair also co-developed La Frontera, a 328 acre mixed-use business center in Williamson County. The financial partner in the project was Fort Worth philanthropist and businessman Ed Bass.

Major users include the Austin North Marriott hotel (Williamson County's only full-service hotel), the headquarters of Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation, and significant office buildings by Koontz-McCombs, Kennedy Wilson, and Simmons Vedder Partners. Also included are three urban-density apartment complexes, and more than one million square feet of retail space, making La Frontera the second largest outdoor retail center in the five-county Metro area.
Postcard book
As part of Arcadia Publishing's Postcard History Series, Martin wrote a book titled "Austin," which depicts vintage postcards of the historic Austin area. The postcards used in the book were culled from Martin's personal collection. Titled simply "Austin," the book presents 217 vintage postcards showcasing historic Austin-area landmarks, such as the Old Main Building on the University of Texas campus, Scarborough Building, French Legation, and the . “Austin” was published in March, 2009.
Waste Management lawsuit
In 1997, while consulting for the multinational company Waste Management Inc, Martin wrote an "Action Alert" memo which became a central document in a defamation lawsuit brought by local company Texas Disposal Systems Landfill, Inc. (TDSL) against Waste Managagement and Martin, though Martin was later dropped from the case. The jury found that the memo was published with "knowledge of its falsity or with serious doubts about its truth", but did not award any damages. TDSL appealed this ruling, and the appeal court ruled that the jury had been incorrectly instructed with regard to damages, while upholding the jury's finding of actual malice. No date has been set for a retrial to determine the amount of any damages.

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