Zach Friend serves as Second District Supervisor for Santa Cruz County. The beautiful and diverse Second District includes the coastal communities of Aptos, La Selva Beach, Seacliff and Rio Del Mar, along with some of the most productive agricultural land in the country in the communities of Corralitos, Freedom and the Pajaro River basin. Portions of the cities of Capitola and Watsonville are also included in the district. Zach was originally elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2012 and overwhelmingly reelected in 2016 and 2020.
Zach has served at the highest levels of government and has extensive experience shaping and enacting local, state and federal legislation and regulatory policy. He has served in the White House Council of Economic Advisers, U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives and for nearly a decade with the Santa Cruz Police Department as a press information officer and crime analyst. He has built and led government affairs and communications teams, served as a spokesperson for multiple presidential campaigns and advised executive level business and government leaders on communications strategy, messaging and narrative development.
As an elected official, Zach has chaired and served on local, state and national commissions on health care and health access, higher education and the University of California system, transportation, technology policy and blockchain, criminal justice and law enforcement, environment and land use, economic development and the film and television industries.
He is the author of On Message: How a Compelling Narrative Will Make Your Organization Succeed, an Amazon.com best seller in the Marketing category and winner of the prestigious Axiom Business Book Award. Zach is a regular commentator on national television on public affairs. He’s been featured on and quoted by CNN, ABC, CBSN, MSNBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, the LA Times, the New York Times, Politico and others.
Zach has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a BA with Honors in History from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He lives in Aptos with his wife and son.
Supervisor Friend represents the Board of Supervisors on the following regional agencies and boards:
- California State Association of Counties Health and Human Services Committee
- Consolidated Redevelopment Successor Agency Oversight Board
- Criminal Justice Council
- Highway 1 Construction Authority
- Library Financing Authority
- Local Agency Formation Commission
- Monterey Bay Air Resources District Board of Directors
- Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Task Force
- National Association of Counties Board of Directors
- National Association of Counties Telecommunications and Technology Committee
- Oral Health Access Santa Cruz County
- Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency
- Pajaro River Project Finance Committee
- Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission
- Santa Cruz County Sanitation District Board of Directors
- Santa Cruz Mid-County Water Agency Board of Directors
- Santa Cruz-Monterey-Merced Managed Medical Care Commission
Supervisor Friend and his staff can be contacted as follows:
- 701 Ocean Street, Room 500, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
- (831) 454-2200 (phone)
- (831) 454-3262 (FAX)
Click here to email Supervisor Friend or you may email Supervisor Friend's staff:
Allyson Violante
Forrest Revere
Click here to see a map of District 2.