Thompson to serve as governors speech writer
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Gov. Rick Perry today announced his deputy director of communications Andrew Barlow is departing from the Governors Office to lead his own consulting business. Barlow will specialize in executive communications multimedia production and political consulting. Matthew Thompson will serve as the governors speech writer effective immediately.
Andrew has been an essential part of my team for three years applying his unique insight dynamic writing and strong work ethic in the service of our state" Gov. Perry said. His impact has gone beyond his work product in the form of his investment in his coworkers and our office culture and he will be greatly missed."
It has been a distinct honor to serve Gov. Perry and the great state of Texas. He is a genuinely principled leader with a bold vision that is making our state an even better place to live" Barlow said. In my career Ive worked for leaders ranging from battlegroup commanders to bank presidents and Gov. Perry is the most effective intuitive and decent of them all."
Barlow has been Perrys principle speechwriter since 2007 authoring two State-of-the-State speeches an inaugural address and two Republican state convention speeches among the nearly 1000 speeches given by Gov. Perry during that period. In addition to speech writing and participating in media relations during crises like Hurricane Ike Barlow also oversaw the complete redesign of the Office of the Governor website created an in-house multimedia capability and worked with policy experts to shape Perrys policy pronouncements.
Barlow began his career as a naval officer including a wartime deployment in Desert Shield/Storm. He worked in corporate public relations at one of the nations 10 largest independent public relations firms then served seven years in ministry as pastor of creative development at Lake Hills Church in Austin. A 1988 graduate of the University of Notre Dame Barlow has lived in Austin for 11 years. He is married to social entrepreneur Trina Barlow and they have three children Haley (16) Hannah (13) and Cade (8).
Thompson has been a writer with the governors office since 2008. He previously spent nearly two decades working for newspapers in Virginia Ohio and Texas including the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express-News. After beginning his career as a writer and copy editor he moved online serving as a content producer at Statesman.com and a social media specialist at MySanAntonio.com. A graduate of The Ohio State University he is married to Tammy Thompson a teacher and they have two young sons Jake (6) and Cooper (4).
