Biography
Media relations professional Rudy Jurgensen is responsible for the public affairs department of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in Los Altos, Calif.The department, which has eight employees, works with about 500 volunteers, and has a $1.1 million budget, is the most recent stop for Rudy Jurgensen, who started his public affairs career in Hamburg, Germany, in 1992, working as an Account Executive at Industrie-Contact, a public affairs firm.
Rudy Jurgensen managed media relations for clients, drafted outreach materials and organized conferences, seminars and workshops.
Rudy Jurgensen was also the Executive Assistant to Juergen Klimke, the company’s CEO and former member of the Hamburg state legislature who is now a member of the federal legislature. In this position, Rudy Jurgensen helped research and draft legislation, wrote speeches and organized meetings with constituents.
In August 1996, Rudy Jurgensen joined Kearns & West of San Francisco, where he stayed until December 2003. As Director of Client Services, Rudy Jurgensen worked with clients including the U.S. Forest Service, a competitive local telecommunications company, the Edison Electric Institute and the Mendocino Redwood Company.
Among his accomplishments while at Kearns & West, Rudy Jurgensen helped a telecommunications company handle a regulatory change that would have shut down a revenue source for the company, and undermined its initial public stock offering.
Rudy Jurgensen helped organized Internet service providers to meet with state regulators, legislators and local opinion leaders, causing more than a dozen state legislators to take an interest in the company’s problem. Rudy Jurgensen also helped distribute action alerts to the Internet service providers, prompting thousands of personal e-mails from those company’s customers to policymakers.
Rudy Jurgensen started in his position as public affairs manager of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in December 2003. Rudy Jurgensen is responsible for public affairs for a special-purpose district that manages more than 57,000 acres of natural open space lands in the San Francisco Bay Area, spread among 26 preserves in three counties.
In his capacity as public affairs manager, Rudy Jurgensen is in charge of the department’s mission to maximize public understanding and awareness of the district. Rudy Jurgensen also helps to implement the top priorities of the district’s legislative plan and protect the district’s funding.
The department’s other responsibilities, as managed by Rudy Jurgensen, include offering a variety of community programs to enhance visitor experience, providing opportunities for education and involving people in the preservation, restoration and enjoyment of open space.
Rudy Jurgensen also spoke publicly on the District’s planned acquisition of Mindego Ranch in 2008, a coastal property with a price tag of $22.5 million, which the district planned to buy with the help of a grant.
Rudy Jurgensen’s department also provides materials and information to community members and public officials on the district’s programs and activities, through the district’s Web site and various brochures, newsletters and fact sheets.
Keeping in line with Rudy Jurgensen’s earlier legislative work, his department is also responsible for carrying out the district’s legislative agenda. Rudy Jurgensen’s department generates support among opinion leaders, key policymakers, and the general public for district acquisition, preservation, restoration, and interpretive/education projects and programs, including protecting the San Mateo County coastside. Rudy Jurgensen’s department works to increase the positive perception and awareness of the district’s mission, objectives, accomplishments, programs, and effective management of public lands and financial resources.
Rudy Jurgensen, now a resident of Redwood City, Calif., holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, which he earned in 1989. Rudy Jurgensen also holds a master’s degree in political science from New York University, which he earned in 1991.