Zach Friend

Zach Friend is a policy, public affairs and communications expert who has worked for Barack Obama and John Kerrys presidential campaigns, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, U.S. Senate, Congressman Sam Farr and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He is author of the book On Message, available on Turner Publishing.

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.

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.