Patrick Rollens Email & Phone Number

Corvallis, Oregon Area

I manage communications and public engagement for the City of Corvallis, including official messaging originating from the city government, as well as opportunities for feedback or input from the broader community. I work to create strong connections between the Corvallis community and their local government to build trust and bring in new voices. A key part of my recent work has been leading the citywide adoption of a new public engagement framework from the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2).

Oak Park, Il

I worked to develop and expand the web presence of the Village of Oak Park, a municipality of about 52,000 people directly west of Chicago. Oak Park has loads of historic charm and plenty of plugged-in citizens. I used my skills as a journalist to meet these folks in the digital space to talk about issues, answer questions and expand the online conversation. In summer 2013 Oak Park received a shiny new website built from the ground up in Drupal, and I leveraged that resource to drive community engagement. I also had the opportunity to lead several strategic initiatives, including overseeing our annual citizen survey and taking part in an innovation project to develop a citizen service request app.

Greater Chicago Area

As advisory board member, I helped steer the growth of ELGL during a critical period of nationwide expansion. I provided insight and strategy to the organization on topics related to local government, public information and communications. Much of this knowledge was shared through a series of regular blog posts on elgl.org. I have also served as speaker and moderator at ELGL's annual conferences.ELGL is a big-tent organization that enhances communication between emerging and experienced government professionals; provides for professional advancement in the field by identifying employment opportunities and through targeted training and education; and supports the advancement of professional local government management. The group meets regularly to discuss topics of interest; share knowledge and information; and support one another in their career aspirations in public service.

Greater Chicago Area

At the Trib I wrote stories and managed breaking news on 90 individual town sites, and I oversaw a stable of active bloggers and citizen contributors in the community. Readers looked to me for connections to digital content that was relevant to them on an hourly basis each day.I was part of the digital team that relaunched triblocal.com in summer 2010, helping move 88 individual websites from an obsolete CMS to a spiffy new Wordpress template. Around the same time, I developed a deep presence on social media, which helped to increase our web traffic and reader engagement year over year. Omniture and Chartbeat helped me track the hour-by-hour performance of our material on social media, which in turn provided insight on how we could better position our content.

I was part of a small B2B reporting team that pursued business stories throughout the Midwest. My MREN portfolio includes punchy department articles as well as long-form magazine features. Our content was centered around real estate but often encompassed related topics such as green building, construction, economic development and transportation. Ask me about visiting a nuclear missile bunker.