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Zach Friend
Zach Friend is a policy, public affairs and communications expert
who has worked for Barack Obama and John Kerry’s presidential
campaigns, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, U.S. Senate, Congressman Sam Farr and the Democratic National Committee
(DNC).
With Obama for America ’08, Zach was a press secretary and
spokesman in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, handling planning,
writing and media relations in the Greater Philadelphia market. For
appearances and interviews, he staffed and briefed Barack Obama, Joe
Biden and other campaign principals and surrogates.
As Deputy National Director of Special Projects for the DNC,
Zach helped lead the field staff for John Kerry’s campaign. Additionally, he
designed message and campaign strategy for Native American outreach in battleground states.
Before the Kerry campaign, Zach served with
Senator Daschle, Congressman Farr and the Council of Economic Advisers
as a staffer, researcher and writer.
He has been quoted by MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, ABC, CBS, National
Public Radio, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, Politico, the Huffington
Post and others.
In June of 2012, Zach was elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors representing the 2nd District - which includes Aptos, La Selva, Corralitos and portions of Capitola and Watsonville.
Previously, Zach was the Press Information Officer and a Crime
Analyst for the Santa Cruz, California Police Department. In addition
to directing communications strategy and acting as the department's
spokesman, he analyzed crime statistics to help design more effective
prevention and enforcement strategies. This included bringing predictive policing to the department, a complex mathematical model that helped predict when and where crime would occur.
He has been published extensively on
issues related to public management, law enforcement resource
allocations and health and economic policy.
Zach has a Masters degree in Public Policy from Georgetown
University and a BA with Honors in History from the University of California, Santa
Cruz.