John Pachtner is Managing Director of Communications for the Foundation, where he is responsible for marketing communications, publications, press relations, the website, speechwriting, and internal communications. He is also responsible for assisting the President & Chief Executive Officer with matters relating to the Foundation’s Board of Directors. In addition, he is an adjunct instructor at Laney College in Oakland.

He is a veteran communications executive with 12 years experience as a journalist working for daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area and 24 years in organizational communications working for large business organizations and a state-wide elected official.

Before coming to the Foundation in 2005, Pachtner was Assistant California Secretary of State for Communications, responsible for press relations and speechwriting.

Before that he served as Director of Communications for the law firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in San Francisco, Director of Corporate Communications for APL (formerly American President Lines), a large ocean shipping company in Oakland, and held a variety of increasingly responsible communications positions at Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco for 12 years.

He served as a military intelligence advisor in Viet Nam and holds a B.A. in Political Science from University of San Francisco.