Josh Fryday

Josh Fryday serves as California’s Chief Service Officer within the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom to lead service, volunteer, and civic engagement efforts throughout California.

As a member of the Governor’s Cabinet, Fryday leads California Volunteers, Office of the Governor. He also serves in a leadership position with the California Governor’s Council for Career Education which works to empower all Californians – youth and adult learners alike – to discover, prepare for, and connect to careers.

Fryday led the COVID-19 Task Force to support food insecure communities and food banks across the state. Since appointed, California Volunteers has launched the nation’s first statewide Climate Action Corps, #CaliforniansForAll volunteer initiative, a statewide Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign, the #CaliforniansForAll College Corps to help thousands of Californians who commit to serving for a year pay for college, and #CaliforniansForAll Youth Jobs Corps, a program to employ underserved youth across the state in critical issue areas.

Fryday is the former Mayor of Novato, his hometown. He also served as President of Golden State Opportunity (GSO), leading the expansion and implementation of the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC). Prior to GSO, he served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) for NextGen Climate, a leading national organization focused on climate change.

Fryday served in the military as an Officer in the United States Navy (‘09-‘13) as a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG). He worked on the Military Commissions in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He also served in Japan, where he augmented the Navy’s 7th Fleet’s Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief efforts during ‘Operation Tomodachi’ following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Fryday received his law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law, and clerked in the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, as well as the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office for then District Attorney Kamala Harris.

He is a founding Board Member of Amazon Frontlines, an emeritus board chair for Demos, a national think-tank focused on issues of economic, racial and political inequality. He is married to Mollye Fryday, an educator, and they have three energetic young boys, Shay, Calvin and Tam.