David Olejarz
Manager, Media Relations, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI
David joined Henry Ford in 1996 as a public relations specialist in Employee Communications. He moved to the Media Relations team in 2000 and was elevated to senior public relations specialist a few years later, becoming manager of Media Relations in 2007. David is part of the media relations team overseeing media outreach for Henry Ford Health System and its flagship Henry Ford Hospital. He is experienced at crisis management and is the Public Information Officer for Henry Ford Hospital under FEMA's National Incident Management System.
Debbie Curry
Director of Marketing and Public Relations, NCH Healthcare System, Naples, Florida
Debbie develops, directs and executes the strategic marketing and public relations plans for the two-hospital, 715-bed system and serves as the Public Information Officer. Curry has a bachelor's degree in Communications from Florida State University and a master's degree in Business Administration from University of South Florida.
Kris Lathan
Director of Media and Public Relations, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL
Kris oversees both proactive and reactive communications at Northwestern, which includes crisis response at one of the busiest academic medical centers in the Midwest, with more than 140,000 admissions annually. She handled the hospital's reception of one of the most critical gunshot survivors during the 2007 Valentine's Day massacre at Northern Illinois University; the internationally televised 2006 Chicago Marathon, where the first-place male finisher slipped suffering a minor injury upon crossing the finish line; and most recently a local, but highly publicized event where 40% of the hospital's 52 operating rooms were forcibly closed following a fan malfunction.
Ashley Howland
Social Media Manager, Baylor Health Care System, Dallas, TX
Ashley has been a member of the Marketing/Public Relations department at Baylor Health Care System for seven years with a strong background in media relations. In 2009, she created a robust social media program and now oversees the strategy and content for Baylor's primary social media networks. Additionally, she is the organization's online spokesperson and a contributor to Baylor's "Sammons Says" blog covering cancer prevention, treatment and research. This year, she helped lead a cross-departmental effort to unblock access to social media websites within her organization.
Karl W. Oestreich
Manager, Enterprise Media Relations, Public Affairs, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
Karl Oestreich joined the Mayo Clinic in 2008 after serving as Director of Media Relations at UnitedHealth Group. Previously, he served in a variety of roles at Blue Cross of Blue Shield of Minnesota over the course of a 19-year career, including leadership positions in internal communications, media relations and public relations. He has served in a variety of leadership positions — including president and treasurer — on the board of directors for the Minnesota chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). He is also accredited by IABC — a peer-review process that is a standard of excellence in the profession. In 2005, Karl was recognized as Chapter Leader of the Year by IABC.
Heather Phillips
Director, Corporate Communications, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio
Heather Phillips has been with Cleveland Clinic for five years and in healthcare PR for 17 years. She has worked on numerous crisis communications initiatives and issue management throughout her career. She recently led a team to revamp the crisis communications plan for Cleveland Clinic. Prior to this, she completed a similar assignment for Summa Health System in Akron, Ohio, where she served as Manager of Corporate Communications and primary spokesperson for the health system. For 10 years she served as PR Director at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna, Ohio and another two years in advertising. Phillips is a graduate of Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations and a current member of PRSA.
Richard Puff
Assistant Vice President, Public Relations and Communications, University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Richard directs the overall external and internal communications of the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, which includes the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences, and the 650-member UC Physicians faculty group practice. Since joining the University of Cincinnati in September, 2004, Richard and his team have garnered almost a dozen awards for their news website (http://www.HealthNews.uc.edu), and various publications. He was also a key member of the team that coordinated communications efforts following a heart/lung transplant mismatch at Duke in February, 2003, which resulted in international news coverage. For those efforts, he and his colleagues were named winners of the 2004 PR News Platinum PR Award in the Crisis Management category and finalists in the Media Relations category. The communications team also received an Award of Excellence from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and an Innovation Honorable Mention Award for Crisis Communications from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Health Academy.
Fraser Seitel: Principal, HospitalCrisis.net, President, Emerald Partners
Moderator Fraser Seitel has been a strategic public relations counselor, teacher, and commentator for more than four decades. PR Week Magazine named Fraser one of the "100 Most Distinguished Public Relations Professionals of the 20th Century." He is a frequent television contributor on Fox News and other networks. The 11th edition of his book, "The Practice of Public Relations," was published by Prentice-Hall/Pearson in 2011. Fraser is also an Adjunct Professor at New York University's School of Business and Professional Studies and has served as Visiting Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Florida International University. Seitel also served as public relations director of The Chase Manhattan Bank and is now president of Emerald Partners, a communications management firm founded in 1992.