Patrick Bloodgood has news running through his veins – from producing local, “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” television reports, to creating socially conscious videos on behalf of a U.S. Federal agency.

During his five years as a news photojournalist, Patrick was nominated for a Regional Emmy and received an Associated Press Award.

“But I had a boss that once told me, ‘don’t get too set in one location… Expand and make yourself more well-rounded in the career field,’” Patrick says. “[When] that opportunity comes along to suddenly change gears… you just roll with the flow.”

So with that sage advice, Patrick soon made the leap from TV to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a Public Affairs Specialist in their Norfolk District.

The Army Corps of Engineers is known for its involvement in Civil Works Programs involving beach restorations and oyster replenishments, Department of Defense operations with construction of facilities on Army and Air Force installations, and responding to natural disasters. For such a high-profile organization that has programs and other international projects authorized by Congress, Patrick was pleased to find that the Corps heavily embraced his expertise and flair for video production.  

“They saw that I had a talent in video, because of my Film Degree and that I worked five years in TV news,” Patrick says. “And they said, ‘we’ll go out and buy you some equipment. What do you want?’ And I gave them my list.”

Armed with the right equipment and a responsibility for video production and the social media networks, Patrick found that his background helped him transition into his new role with ease.

“Your entire day can turn on a dime—not unlike a lot of what you deal with in the regular television media,” says Patrick. “I’ve got these deadlines to hit. Then a media call could come in, and your whole day is then spent doing research, grabbing your subject-matter experts, and answering requests for query.”

Patrick’s mission as Public Affairs Specialist is to create a “heavy mix of news packages that covers the projects we’re doing,” he says. “We have a very robust social media program…I am one of the content providers for Flickr and YouTube,” Patrick says.

“I have [also] headed up the expansion of our video production space and doing the news turns. I just recently got on to one of our deployment teams. When a natural disaster hits, I’m on a list to go down.”

As part of the deployment team, Patrick will be shooting video from the actual disaster scene so that he can highlight “this is what we’re doing here at this particular junction…and this is how you can help. This is how we’re helping our citizens recover,’” Patrick says.

Videos that display the local, national, and social responsibilities of the Norfolk District are produced and posted by Patrick on the agency’s YouTube channel, including the “Full Potential” video for which Patrick won an Award of Merit from the Accolade Competition.

“We’ve grown it. It’s been a learning process, and we’ve…adjusted fire when we needed to adjust fire,” Patrick says. “I like… going out and shooting with my HD camera and getting to know our people. I love the ability to be able to tell our story and really highlight the good deeds we’re doing out there.

“It’s never a dull moment,” Patrick says. “We’ve really been building and crafting this video productions aspect of it and getting it to where we want…If you’re good at what you do, they’ll notice.”