Marion Champion is the Assistant General Manager at Mission Springs Water District, where she heads up the district’s Communications, Conservation, and Legislative outreach efforts. Passionate about water, education, sustainability, and the looming health crisis posed by the shrinking Salton Sea, she has used her Communications skills to spotlight and call for community and legislative action.
Before joining MSWD in October 2022, she was the Public Information Officer at College of the Desert, responsible for overseeing all branding, marketing, and communications-related activities at the College. She helped the institution navigate through a turbulent COVID-19 pandemic, which included moving all learning activities online for a two-year period. She also supported many of the college's student-first achievements, which garnered a national Bellwether Award for student success.
Before joining the College, Champion was the Media Communications Officer at the Imperial Irrigation District. There for more than 14 years, she was responsible for overseeing the district’s media relations, social media channels, print services, websites and all internal and external communications.
While at IID, her efforts helped to shine a national spotlight on the plight of the Salton Sea. To help garner support for IID’s State Water Board petition that called for increased action at the sea, she used a multipronged communications approach that included traditional and grassroots media outreach efforts, including the creation of websites, social media pages, public speaking engagements, and the hosting of public stakeholder tours of the sea.
Prior to moving to Southern California, Champion honed her communications skills at Fortune 500-ranked Providian Financial. While at Providian, she worked with industry leaders in the communications field and gained valuable experience in internal communications, media relations, grant/gift making, and crisis communications.
Active in her community, Champion was named the DHS Volunteer of the Year in 2023 by the Greater Coachella Valley Chamber of Commerce. She is part of the DHS Chamber Board, the DHS Rotary Club, Friends of the DHS Library, the DVBA's Professional Women in Building Council, and the DHS Women's Club Secretary. A proponent of education, she supports various local school events, including providing tours and educational support to the DHS High School REAL Academy. Champion is also a driving force behind many of the community-giving efforts of the water district, including its Toy and Canned food drives, and is a proud participant and promoter of the District's Life Stream Community Blood Drives.
Mother of three, Champion spends her spare time on the volleyball court, coaching alongside her husband at College of the Desert. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations from Cal State University, East Bay.