City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison honored CMTV Multimedia Specialist and Videographer Ron Dam with the City Manager Leadership Award for the month of June.

“Ron is an extraordinarily talented camera operator, editor and video producer,” Farrell Harrison said. “He and the CMTV team have successfully partnered on video projects with every department and every elected official in the city, making everyone and every department in the city consistently look good. Thanks for spotlighting our City and our employees. I’m thrilled to give him this award.”

Dam is noted for being able to take not so exciting public service content and transform it into viewer-friendly informative and entertaining videos. His video handiwork has become a featured highlight at the City’s annual Employee Service Awards, turning employees into “actors.” 

His many duties include broadcasting meetings, writing scripts, shooting and editing videos, creating animations and his artistic work can be found on many of our “public facing” communication platforms, including Channel 3, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Granicus.

His combination of expert production and storytelling skills have helped make CMTV a nationally recognized operation, resulting in dozens of regional and national governmental video awards. 

Dam started in Costa Mesa as a part time video production specialist in April of 2013. He has a bachelor’s degree from Cal State Long Beach, with a major in journalism and minor in Chinese.

When he’s not creating videos, he spends time as a longtime member of a “Taiko,” or “Japanese percussion instrument” drumming group, performing shows at community events throughout Southern California.