New chief communications officer trades nation’s capitol for sun and surf

Sometimes Southwestern College's new spokesperson admits he would trade the busy life in the superintendent's office for something a little quieter.

"If I were to start completely over again, I would seriously consider being a park ranger," said Chris Bender, SWC's chief communications officer.

Bender, who worked in a number of high-profile jobs in Washington D.C. prior to making his way back to California, said his love for the outdoors allows him to escape from the stresses of some of the work he does.

"It's been really busy here since I got here in February," he said. "I've accepted that it's going to be that way until probably June. But once things slow down, my goal is to get back into doing the things that I used to love to do here in San Diego, like tennis and surfing."

Though he was born in Bethesda, Maryland, Bender grew up in Poway after moving with his family at the age of three. During his undergraduate stint at UCLA, he realized the two things he really liked were writing and public service, but he did not quite know what he could do with either of those straight out of college.

After two years of working dead end jobs in retail, Bender said it was time to get back on track and build himself a career.

"I had enough time to realize what I wanted to do," said Bender. "One of my major observations in that time period was watching people speak on television and they were awful. I would think to myself that they always had good things to say, but the way they said it was terrible."

After seeing that, he began looking into where he could go to get formal training in speech writing. One was George Washington University in the nation's capital, which offered a graduate program in political management. He quickly headed back to his childhood stomping grounds.

"The more I was there, the more I realized it was exactly what I wanted to be doing," he said.

While navigating his way through graduate school, Bender got his first big break when he landed an internship in the press office of the White House in August of 1999. In January of the next year his internship was extended and expanded into speech writing. His career took a giant leap forward after landing a speech writing job for the then-Mayor of Washington D.C., Anthony Williams.

Bender said he wrote a speech for the Deputy Mayor to give at a dedication for a synagogue and thought it was terrible.

"It was like a young speechwriter who didn't understand that less is more, but he delivered it," he said. "Afterwards he stormed into my office and said ‘Your speech…' That's all he said at first, and I was like ‘oh man, I am getting fired.' But he told me ‘Your speech…it was so good. People liked it and were asking for copies.' I just sighed a huge relief. A week later, his chief of staff called and offered me a job as their communications guy."

A year into this new role, Bender said he realized he was not going to be able to do it unless he really understood how reporters thought. This realization spurred him to go back to school, this time to Columbia University. Here he took some basic journalism courses to learn some tricks of the trade. He said the great advantage of learning about journalism was that he was now more adept to seeing eye-to-eye with journalists because he understood their code, their language and understood what it is that they are looking for.

Bender said he made it to the big leagues in 2006 when he took a job as the deputy press secretary and speechwriter for former New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg. Bender said it was a privilege to work in such a prestigious position, but the job took its toll.

"The thing that wore me thin was how time consuming it was," he said. "You worked 10-11 hour days, then you'd go home and your blackberry was still going off. You never really got a chance to turn off your brain and that was the hardest part."

In February of 2010 Bender took his current position, chief communications officer at SWC. With so much turmoil on campus and within the administration, it seemed a strange time to take on such a role, but Bender's former colleagues said they were not surprised.

"He is never shy to take on a challenge," said Greg Houston, partner for the consulting firm Public Service Advocates (D.C.). "Going to an organization where he is comfortable and where he is familiar was probably a big part of his decision. The other thing would be is it a challenge for him and is it going to be something he can sink his teeth into? I think SWC fits both of those bills."

Alan Elias, a staff member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, agreed.

"I'm sure he was aware of what he was getting into at SWC," he said. "I think that's really what it is, it's just his hunger for a new challenge."

Bender admitted that he did have a few ulterior motives for taking the position.

"I was interested in the opportunity to create and the opportunity to give back," he said. "But also, it's San Diego. You can't really beat that."

Houston agreed.

"Chris is a West Coast guy," he said. "We used to talk for years about trying to get involved in some sort of endeavor back in the west."

More than his desire to return to California, Bender said he is eager for the opportunity to take SWC in new directions.

"I think I got to the point in my career where I needed balance," he said. "One of the main reasons for selecting this job at SWC was I wanted something to do with students, but I also wanted something that was a better balance."

Bender said he has big plans for the campus in the future.