Barry Mitzman

Barry Mitzman was the founding director of the Project on Family Homelessness, and led the new undergraduate major in strategic communications as director of the SU Center for Strategic Communications. Barry had joined the faculty in 2008 from Microsoft, where as Director of Strategic Communications he managed public-affairs advertising and was an advisor to Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer. Prior to Microsoft, Barry was vice president of SS+K, an integrated marketing communications firm based in New York.

He also had an accomplished career as a newspaper and television journalist, well-known to Seattle audiences for his on-air work at the regional PBS station, KCTS/9. His regional TV news programs and national PBS documentaries earned many honors including a Peabody award, broadcasting’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Barry has taught journalism and communications at the University of Washington, University of Oregon, and Linfield College. In his free time, he kayaks Puget Sound.

Barry left Seattle University in 2016 and is working on a one-year assignment in corporate communications at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.