Senior Administration
William E. Swanger III, APR
William Swanger is Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications and Public Relations
with Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries. He oversees all corporate communications including strategic
communications planning, crisis communication, and public relations, as well as publications and collateral
materials, advertising, media relations, Web-site creation, and video production.
Before being named to his current position, Mr. Swanger was executive for communications with Tressler
Lutheran Services, one of the two agencies that created Diakon in 2000. He joined that organization as public
information specialist in 1978 and was soon promoted to director of public information and, later, to executive.
He is a former newspaper editor and reporter.
A member of the Pennsylvania Public Relations Society and past president of the Central Pennsylvania
chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, Mr. Swanger is nationally accredited in public relations.
He has received national, regional, and local awards for public relations, publications, and writing,
including four Keystone Awards, a dozen local and regional IABC awards (including "Best of Show"), more
than a dozen national APEX awards including a Grand Award, a PANPHA public relations award, and several
national Mature Media awards.
Mr. Swanger holds a bachelor’s degree from Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pa., from which
he was graduated cum laude and received departmental honors in English literature. In late 2008, he received
his master’s degree (focus in strategic communication) from the University of Missouri-Columbia School
of Journalism, where he was named to Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honor society in journalism and mass
communications. A freelance writer, he has sold articles to national publications, newspapers, and business
journals and provided public relations consultation to the former National Association of Lutheran Ministries
for the Aging.
Mr. Swanger works in Diakon’s support services office at 960 Century Drive, Mechanicsburg, Pa.,
and can be reached by telephone at (717) 795-0307.
Go Back to Administration
Board of Directors |
Richard Barger |
Tracy Boyer |
Tama Carey |
Alice Clark |
Lauren Conzaman
MaryEllen Dickey |
Scott Habecker |
Susan Lippy |
Jeanne Oski |
John Palkovitz |
Mark T. Pile
Rick Reed |
The Rev. John Richter |
William Swanger |
Beckey Van Etten |