Michael Giarrusso is the Chief of Bureau for the Associated Press in Arizona and New Mexico, overseeing the AP's business operations, marketing and customer relations in the two states. Giarrusso moved to the business side of AP in June 2010, after 18 years working for the AP's News department. During his Sulzberger Fellowship, Giarrusso was a news director leading the U.S. regionalization project, working with a large multi-department team to create a new regional filing structure that moved editing functions out of New York and the state bureaus and into four regional filing centers. In 2008, he won the AP's highest internal honor, the Gramling Award, for his work in the reorganization. He has been with the AP since graduating from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1992. He started as an intern and reporter in the Atlanta bureau before moving to Pennsylvania as a correspondent covering sports and news in the central part of the state. In 1996, he became an editor on the AP's National desk before returning to Atlanta in 2003. Giarrusso has served as an editor at political conventions, the Olympics, and major news events, including the disputed 2000 presidential election and Hurricane Katrina. A member of the Asian American Journalists Association, Giarrusso helps manage the AP's internship program and has a strong role in recruiting for the news operation. In 2000, the Grady College awarded Giarrusso the John E. Drewry award for early career achievement in journalism.