Mike Francis is a veteran communicator and freelance journalist. He worked as the associate director of communications at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon; as a reporter and editor at the Houston Chronicle; the (Bend) Bulletin; the Kansas City Star; the Business Journal of Portland, where he served as Editor; and The Oregonian, where he served as Technology Editor, was embedded as a military reporter three times in Iraq and extensively covered the Department of Veterans Affairs. He also worked in marketing and as a blogger for Providence Health & Services and answered crisis line calls at Lines for Life.