Hi, Iʼm Honest Charley Bodkin

Campaign Strategist
Designer
Software Engineer
Speechwriter

San Francisco, CA

My name was given to me at birth. Honest was my great-grandfatherʼs nickname—he started a business named Honest Charleyʼs Speed Shop, which was the first national catalog to sell hot rod and race car parts. Most of my friends and colleagues call me Charley, but I also go by my first name, Honest. I welcome a good joke or two about my name.

I have a passion for technology, design, and civics. I started my career in 2014 at the Los Angeles Times, where I was a data journalist and product engineer. I went on in 2018 to found my own company, Yellow Brim, which sold a subscription software named Osmosys to clients that included the Los Angeles Times, Vox Media, CalMatters, and Lookout Local to help them more efficiently send daily newsletters to readers.

After leaving Yellow Brim in 2022, I led an international team of engineers at Converge Insurance as a founding engineer to launch a completely new underwriting platform from 2022 to 2023.

During the 2024 election cycle, I was Director of Campaign Operations for the Dylan Hirsch-Shell for San Francisco Mayor campaign, after I suspended my own campaign for Mayor. I managed an organization of 4 and tens of volunteers. I was responsible for operationalizing the campaign; development of strategic messaging; speechwriting; event management; designing, printing, and sending direct mail to hundreds of thousands of voters; designing several print and digital advertisements for several newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle; and building a web application that enabled our team to target voters, phone bank, and canvass thousands of doors. We ultimately earned the votes of thousands of San Franciscans.

I'm currently open to work. I'm particularly interested in roles that involve some combination of design, data, technology, civics, and making positive change in the world. Fundamentally though, I love working with good people, so if you're a good person looking for someone with my skills, I'd love to hear from you.

Thank you for your interest,
Honest