STEVE MURRAY Steve Murray is Communications and External Affairs Director of the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Tallahassee, Fla. An Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, he assumed his current duties in July 2006. The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel provides oversight and direction of the department’s comprehensive public affairs program of community outreach, media relations, social media engagement, branding and employee communications impacting Florida’s more than 1.5 million veterans and their families. The department’s outreach and branding campaign was the 2013 recipient of the Florida Public Relations Association’s Dick Pope All Florida Grand Golden Image Award, the industry’s top annual honor, for the single best statewide public relations campaign. The campaign also received the Abraham Lincoln Pillar of Excellence Award from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2015. During his Air Force career, he served as Director of Public Affairs with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Washington, D.C., Faculty Head of the Public Affairs Department at the Defense Information School (DoD), Fort Meade, Maryland, and Director of Public Affairs at Headquarters Air Force Recruiting Service, Randolph AFB, Texas. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in broadcast journalism with honors from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and has a Master of Science degree in Administration from Central Michigan University. He is a 2009 inductee into the University of Southern Mississippi School of Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame, and in 2010 was awarded the Medal of Merit from the Air Force Association. He is a 2013 recipient of the Diamond Leadership Award from the Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the state agency’s highest honor. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Honor Flight Tallahassee, the Florida Health Care Association’s Public Relations Committee and the Florida Council of Chapters for the Military Officers Association of America. He serves as the agency’s representative to the State Emergency Response Team and is an associate member of the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs. ___ Lt. Col. Roger Murray, whom earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from USM in 1988, has achieved more than two decades of professional success stateside and overseas. He was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq in 2004 as Chief of Current Operations for Combined Joint Task Force-Seven and received the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association’s “Best of the Best” Award for Outstanding Air Force Public Affairs Professional. In 2005, Murray was awarded the Air Force Public Affairs Director’s Award for Special Achievement in a Crisis Situation for his public affairs efforts while at Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Miss., as a part of Joint Task Force-Katrina. He has also served as Director of Public Affairs at various Air Force bases both overseas and in the U.S., including the Air Force Office of Special Investigations in Washington, D.C. At the time of his 2009 induction into the MCJ Hall of Fame, Murray served as the Communications Director for the Florida Dept of Veteran’s Affairs. COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES