David C. Olson

David C. Olson served as the Director of Franchising and Cable Communications for the City of Portland, Oregon from 1983 to 2012, one of the longest tenures in municipal cable oversight in the country. In that role he managed Portland's cable franchise agreements, oversaw the funding structure that supported Portland Community Media and other PEG access organizations, and represented the city's public interest in negotiations with cable operators over three decades of technological and regulatory change. He holds a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School and a bachelor's degree from Reed College. When Portland retired his position he was honored with "David Olson Day," and Portland Community Media produced a short film commemorating his contributions.

His most consequential work came in the late 1990s when Portland, under his leadership, filed suit against AT&T over the right to collect revenue from cable modem services and regulate internet access through the cable franchise. That fight, which went to federal court, became one of the early battlegrounds in the net neutrality debate and helped establish the civic argument that the cable infrastructure running through public rights-of-way carried public interest obligations beyond cable television programming.

In 2013 the ACM recognized David with the Dirk Koning-George Stoney Award for Humanistic Communication, acknowledgment that three decades of municipal cable oversight had produced something more than administrative routine: a consistent defense of the public's stake in its own communications infrastructure.