Paul Gullixson has been Communications Manager for Sonoma County since 2020. He manages an eight-member centralized team that oversees press relations, social media, media training, the county’s biweekly newsletter and “SoCo Chat,” a weekly podcast. He previously worked for more than 30 years as a journalist, including as editorial director for The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, where he played a role in several team awards, including the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the October 2017 fires. Paul taught journalism for five years at Sonoma State University, serving as faculty adviser for the student newspaper, and later worked as Associate Vice President of Strategic Communications for the university. He is also co-author of “Inflamed: Abandonment, Heroism, and Outrage in Wine Country's Deadliest Firestorm,” which won the 2023 Book of the Year award from Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. He lives in Santa Rosa.