As an undergraduate student at the University of Georgia, Brad McAllister (BS ’02) thought he would go to medical school. A trip to Costa Rica between his second and third year changed that trajectory.

He was taking science classes, looking ahead to medical school one day, when he signed up for a Maymester class in Costa Rica for some quick credits.

“Maymesters are only supposed to be a month, but I ended up staying all summer,” he said.

McAllister leveraged that May course into an internship and, by the time he returned to UGA in the fall, he’d developed an abiding interest in the connection between human health and the environment.

“I started putting the pieces together and took an ecosystems course, which led to other courses,” he said. “Then, I changed my major to ecology.”

A couple of decades later, McAllister is the president & COO of WAP Sustainability, a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based consulting company that helps companies across the U.S. identify and achieve their sustainability goals. (In early 2026, WAP Sustainability became part of SLR, a global sustainability company headquartered in the U.K.)

His career wasn’t a predictable trajectory from college to executive—he spent time collecting data in Alaska fisheries, returned to school for a master’s degree and worked in sustainability for a local government—but it has been a journey to understand what motivates people to choose sustainability.

“I got really inspired with a new way of thinking about environmental issues, thinking that maybe it’s not all stick. Maybe there are some carrots involved in getting organizations to change their ways,” he said. “And that’s ultimately what corporate sustainability is.”

While working on a graduate degree at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga and taking classes at Lipscomb University, McAllister met his future business partner, William Paddock. WAP Sustainability was born in 2009 and grew quickly. From its first client—an Alabama company looking for help validating their sustainability practices for a vendor—the company expanded offerings to achieve Cradle to Cradle certifications that show product sustainability, perform lifecycle assessments, manage carbon, and develop ESG (environmental, social and governance) plans, among other services.

“That initial client still works with us today,” McAllister said. “And since that day, we’ve grown from one client to around 600 clients, from just a partnership to a team of nearly 100 people. We’ve grown across industries and across products.”

They found a niche providing consulting services for companies interested in meeting LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) criteria and sustainability initiatives of large retailers.

“We made a business of helping suppliers meet the sustainability requirements of their buyers—companies like Amazon and Walmart,” he said.

Much of the growth came in the past five years, as WAP adapted to pandemic-era work-from-home practices and found that clients remained interested in understanding and improving their environmental practices, even in the face of other challenges.

“Turns out, people still need to understand and improve their company’s environmental footprint and sustainability practices regardless of whether we are all dealing with a global pandemic,” he said.

In late 2025, McAllister and Paddock decided to take another step.

“We looked at what we’d achieved and decided that we need a bigger platform. We wanted to go global, so we found this international partner,” he said.

As his company grew and McAllister took on more corporate responsibilities, he also stepped into new roles at the Odum School of Ecology.

In fall 2024, he lectured to two sections of the Sustainability Seminar class, offering insight into the job market for sustainability professionals.

“I appreciated looking around this classroom and seeing someone from ecology sitting next to someone who’s getting an MBA sitting next to someone who’s in communications,” he said. “That type of cross-discipline collaboration is important in the sustainability market, and it’s important that students have that experience at the university level.”

McAllister serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council, a group that advises on strategic initiatives for the college and gives students a connection to people working in ecological professions.

While he enjoys giving back to UGA and mentoring students, McAllister also found benefits for his company. At a spring sustainability networking night in 2025, he met an impressive student who would graduate soon with a business administration degree from UGA’s Terry College and a Sustainability Certificate through the Odum School. WAP hired Courtney Combs as the company’s first marketing manager.

“I get a lot of inspiration from the Dean’s Advisory Council. Students present to the board and, from first-years to Ph.D. candidates, they are doing amazingly innovative stuff that makes me think,” he said. “I also want to give back to Odum School and to UGA. That trip to Costa Rica changed my life. It really did—not just professionally, but it also made me a more worldly person, made me a more considerate person, made me a more open-minded person.”

A third motivation draws him back to UGA and the Odum School, something bigger than mentoring students or finding inspiration for himself.

“The fact of the matter is, we continue to have a massive footprint on a very limited planet. The Odum School of Ecology has been dedicated to addressing that challenge for a long time,” McAllister said.

“I’d like to think that my perspective from working with manufacturing organizations and brands can help folks understand how sustainability issues are evaluated in the boardroom. So, I hope to make an impact not just for myself or for students, but for the world.”