Tom Christensen has been a communications specialist with the County of San Diego since 2006. He coordinates and monitors nearly 100 accounts as part of the County’s nationally-recognized social media efforts and writes stories for CountyNewsCenter.com. He won Communicator of the Year in 2021 and he was part of the team that won the 2018 CAPIO Frank Potter Cowan Crisis Communications Leader Team Award and has worked on crisis communications during several wildfires, a county-wide blackout and an outbreak of hepatitis A.

He has done presentations, webinars, and interviews on government use of social media for CAPIO, the National Association of Counties (NACo), Government Social Media Organization, National Public Health Information Coalition (NPHIC), the California Department of Public Health, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Philadelphia Health Department’s 12 Days of Social Media in Emergency Management, California Office of Binational Border Health, and several local governments and community organizations.

Prior to joining San Diego County, Tom was the Communications Director for the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives for 11 years and was a daily newspaper reporter and weekly columnist in Minnesota for more than a decade. He also hosted a morning Top 40 radio show.