Our Staff

Alan Griggs
Senior Consultant, Institute for Crisis Management

Senior Consultant Alan Griggs joined the ICM staff in 2000 with more than 25 years experience in broadcast news and extensive public relations experience in politics and the United Methodist Church.

After 20-years at WSM TV in Nashville, TN, including nine years as News Director of one of the most honored television news operations in the country, Griggs became Director of Media Strategy for United Methodist Communications, an agency of The United Methodist Church. His responsibilities included working with national and local media; conducting media training sessions for church officials; coordinating crisis seminars and conducting crisis counseling; co-producing television commercials for the denomination and assisting in the development of a national media campaign for the church.

A native of Newnan, Georgia, he received his BA in journalism from the University of Georgia and holds an MA in organizational communication from Western Kentucky University.

Mr. Griggs has served as an adjunct professor of communications at the University of Tennessee and Western Kentucky University, published academic research and business articles and has served as president of the University of Georgia journalism advisory board.

Before moving to WSM-TV, later WSMV-TV, in Nashville, his television career also included a stay at WAPI-TV in Birmingham and WBZ-TV in Boston.

Mr. Griggs has received most of broadcast journalism's top awards including three Peabody awards (the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), a Dupont-Columbia citation for a documentary on the Ku Klux Klan, two National Headliner awards, the George Polk award, the Edward R. Murrow award for broadcast excellence, several Emmys, and the Robert F. Kennedy award for a year-long effort on race relations.

In 1994, he moved from asking questions to answering them as director of communications for a U.S. Senate campaign. He later became marketing director for Film House, Incorporated, handling strategic positioning and marketing for television stations around the country.

He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Religious Communications Council, the Religious Speech Communication Association and the Public Relations Society of America.

Mr. Griggs' wife, Sandra, a native of Jasper, Alabama, is a graduate of Vanderbilt University's Divinity School and a minister. They are the parents of one daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons, Lee and William.