I started my career in journalism at a small television station in Bismarck, North Dakota, but didn’t stay long because my hair kept freezing, along with the oil in my car.
When I got a chance to move back to my hometown of Salt Lake City to host a radio news show, I took it and spent the next decade reporting for radio and television stations, first covering general news and eventually moving to the medical beat. I won several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio and Television News Directors Association, and the Association of Health Care Journalists.
My experience covering the healthcare industry helped me land a media relations position with a
My experience covering the healthcare industry helped me land a media relations position with a large pharmaceutical company near New Haven, Connecticut. I moved there in 1999, but after a few years living on the East Coast, I missed journalism and my family and friends in the Western U.S. , so I moved back, this time to Oregon.
large pharmaceutical company near New Haven, Connecticut. I moved there in 1999, but after a few years living on the East Coast, I missed journalism and my family and friends in the Western U.S. , so I moved back, this time to Oregon.
When I first moved to Portland, I worked as a freelance reporter for a variety of news outlets, including Portland Monthly, the Portland Tribune, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. In 2007, I took a full-time job managing media relations for Kaiser Permanente, an integrated healthcare organization that provides care and coverage to more than 600,000 people in Oregon and Washington.
Eventually I moved to the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, where, for ten years, I translated the results of scientific studies into press releases, stories and videos for health care providers and the public. Then, I moved to public health, where I oversaw Medicaid communications for the Oregon Health Authority and COVID-19 communications for Washington County.
Now, I’m using the knowledge and experience I’ve gained over the last thirty years to help organizations like yours tell their own stories.