Tom Christensen leads the social media efforts for San Diego County, the fifth-largest county in the nation. He coordinates and monitors nearly 75 accounts as part of the County’s nationally-recognized social media efforts. He was the CAPIO 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.

He has been with the County for 20 years, and has worked on crisis communications during several wildfires, COVID-19, a county-wide blackout and an outbreak of hepatitis A. Besides emergencies, he is responsible for connecting residents with their government’s programs, initiatives and community outreach efforts.

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, Social Media Strategies Summit, 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.