Personnel note: Matt Galka departs for Phoenix

Matt Galka, an on-air reporter for Mike Vasilinda‘s Capitol News Service, has left Tallahassee to join the FOX affiliate in Phoenix.

Galka, a member of the SaintPetersblog “30 Under 30” Class of 2015, will be a general assignment reporter at KSAZ starting Monday, Feb. 27, according to FOX spokeswoman Claudia Russo. 

He’s originally from Southington, Connecticut, where he lost more than 100 pounds in high school to get on the football team, eventually becoming team captain.

Galka graduated from Syracuse University, where he was a walk-on football player, and then got his master’s from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

In Florida, Galka won the “Best Overall” award in 2013 from Florida Associated Press Broadcasters, and followed that up with a “Best Continuing Coverage” award for his reporting on the Jameis Winston sexual assault allegations at Florida State in 2014.

“I want to be the same person on TV that you could talk to at a bar,” he said in a 2015 interview. “I’m not out there playing some character. It’s important to be honest in a world where so many aren’t.”