Rachel McCallister - Guest Expert

Episode 4

Rachel McCallister serves as a guest expert on the new USA Network original reality/competiton series Made in the USA. She appears on episode 4, "Do People Like It?" to help the inventor teams shape the public's response to their product.

McCallister is Co-President of mPRm, a public relations agency specializing in entertainment, new media and communications companies and their product. She was founder and president of Rachel McCallister & Associates, which specialized in television and home entertainment, and co-founder and president of KillerApp Communications, the first agency created to provide public relations and promotions specifically for interactive entertainment and communications companies and their products. McCallister currently focuses her efforts on brand positioning and strategy development for the company's entertainment, technology and lifestyle clients.

In 1993, she was awarded the Publicists Guild's highest honor, the Les Mason Award for outstanding individual achievement.

An early convert to interactive entertainment, McCallister has been involved in crafting strategies for companies whose technologies are transforming the creation and distribution of entertainment, from RealNetworks and its RealAudio and RealVideo technologies to Dolby Digital Cinema, as well as guiding Hollywood studio interactive divisions through broadband and mobile product launches. She has played a role in developing the launch strategy for numerous content distribution companies.

McCallister has been responsible for the creation and execution of public relations campaigns for television projects ranging from Lonesome Dove and the MTV Video Music Awards to Dynasty, In Living Color, ALF, Buffalo Bill, It's Garry Shandling's Show, and Picket Fences, as well as theatricals such as A Brief History of Time and Gettysburg. She also developed the launch campaigns for five cable networks, E! Entertainment Television, fX, Classic Sports Network, Fox Family and SoapNet, and also supervised the re-positioning effort for The Disney Channel.

McCallister has client relationships with many top studios and independent production companies, including DreamWorks SKG, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony, Disney, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment and Spelling Television.

Prior to starting her own company in 1987, McCallister was executive vice president at The Lippin Group. She began her career in public relations at Rogers & Cowan, where she became Director, Television Publicity.

A native of Los Angeles, McCallister graduated from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where she majored in Politics. She began her career as the Public Affairs Director for KRTH radio and then worked in various production capacities on both daytime and primetime series before moving into public relations.