About

Tom Unger with news legend Walter Cronkite

 

Tom Unger, APR, ABC, CTM, ACB, Fellow PRSA is an award-winning corporate communications, public relations, news writing and business writing professional and public speaker with more than four decades of experience.

Tom worked for 10 years as a reporter, editor and news photographer for newspapers, radio and television stations in Oregon, California and British Columbia. He also wrote extensive freelance articles for a large variety of news outlets.

Tom then entered the corporate communications field in 1989. He worked at St. Vincent Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles before joining First Interstate Bank there in 1993.

From 1995 until June 1, 2018, Tom served as a vice president and regional communications manager at Wells Fargo in Portland, Ore., where he managed internal and external communications for the company in Oregon and southwest Washington.

Tom is a past president of the Portland chapters of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the International Association of Business Communicators. He also served as president of Toastmaster Clubs at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Wells Fargo. He is one of the few communicators in the United States accredited by all three organizations.

Tom earned a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia (graduating in three years) and a Professional Designation in Public Relations from UCLA Extension (graduating in under a year). He has earned about 30 awards in news writing, creative writing, speech writing, newsletters, research and public speaking.

Tom has taught classes he created in public relations and corporate communications at Glendale Community College, Portland State University, Marylhurst University and Clark College. He is credited with helping create the Portland Communicators Conference, which celebrated its 20th year in 2016.

Tom was born and raised in Westbury, N.Y.  He currently resides with his wife in Milwaukie, Ore.