Commencement Speaker Profile

M. Olaf Frandsen is the publisher of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, and in addition serves as the regional vice president for parent company Freedom Communications Inc., which oversees daily newspapers in Harlingen, Brownsville, Weslaco, South Padre Island and Odessa, Texas and Sedalia, Mo.

Prior to his current position, Frandsen was employed as a publisher in Marysville, Calif., and was also vice president for the Pacific region of Freedom. In his 26 years with the company, he has been a publisher in Turlock, Calif., an editor at newspapers in Odessa and the company’s flagship, the Orange County Register.

Frandsen is the past president of the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association, and was editor of the Odessa American when it was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for the paper’s photo coverage of the rescue of Baby Jessica McClure.

He began his newspaper career in 1978 after graduation from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He earned his master’s degree in business administration in 2001 from the University of Phoenix.

Frandsen is married to his wife Gail and has three grown children and four grandchildren.