Ron Menchaca

Ron Menchaca is the vice president of university communications at the College of Charleston. He began this position in February 2020.

In this role, Menchaca serves as a member of the president's senior leadership team and directs the Office of University Communications, which is responsible for college news, media relations, advancement communications and crisis communications.

Menchaca is a veteran of the U.S. Army, having served as a paratrooper and radio communications specialist in the 82nd Airborne Division. Following his military service, he enrolled as an adult student at the College of Charleston, where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in communication, with a concentration in media studies.

Menchaca began a career in journalism in 1998 at The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, S.C., where he won numerous state and national awards for investigative reporting, feature writing and breaking news. He co-wrote several major investigative pieces that led to government reforms, including a series on police officer misconduct, a probe into a fire that killed nine Charleston firefighters and an examination of the state's aging fleet of school buses. He was named Journalist of the Year by the South Carolina Press Association in 2007.

In 2009, Menchaca returned to his alma mater to serve as director of executive communications and speechwriter to College of Charleston President P. George Benson. He was promoted to senior director of communications in 2014 and moved to the College's Division of Marketing and Communications, where he led the creation of a campus newsroom and news website.

Menchaca has served on numerous campus committees and task forces, including the Staff Advisory Committee to the President, the 250th Anniversary Historical Documentation Committee and the Historical Review Taskforce.

A native of Oregon, Menchaca and his wife, Amy, live in Charleston, S.C. Their daughter is a high school senior and their son is a current College of Charleston student.