Meet John Bernstrom

John Bernstrom is the Public Information Officer for the City of Grand Forks, North Dakota and has been working in communications for the City of Grand Forks since 2006.

John grew up on a farm in Northwest Minnesota and graduated High School from Lancaster High School in 1997.  John attended the University of North Dakota and received his Bachelors Degree in Communications in 2001.

While attending college, John started working in the Sports Department at a local television station, WDAZ-TV, as a photographer/reporter.  He eventually became weekend sports anchor and held this position until 2006.

After transitioning to the City, John has been a part of projects including website development in 2015 and 2019, managing local government access channel including live broadcast production of City Council meetings, helping launch and grow the first Social Media channels for the City, Legislative Committee and of course day-day communications efforts for local government.  John has also led several disaster communications responses including, Northwood Tornado, power outages, wind storms, flooding, blizzards, and COVID response to name a few (they tend to blend together).

Outside of work John has served on the Church Council at Calvary Lutheran Church and the Board of Directors at United Day Nursery including time as Board President.  You can also find John helping with live sports broadcasts with WDAY-TV for both High School and College sporting events.

John and his wife Stephanie have two wonderful children, James and Helen that keep them busy running around to soccer, football, baseball, orchestra, chorus, band and anything else they want to sign up for.