Craig Boerner
Boerner, Rivers join VUMC news office
Kathy Rivers
News and media veterans Craig Boerner and Kathy Rivers are joining Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Office of News and Public Affairs as information officers.
Both started Monday, Oct. 3.
Boerner will write stories for the VUMC Reporter and the office's other publications, with his primary focus being the School of Medicine. He comes to Vanderbilt from the Nashville City Paper, where he has been a reporter for the past five years covering all aspects of the city, including government, public safety, education, development and politics.
Boerner, who holds a bachelors degree from the University of Missouri, previously held positions at In Review in Nashville and the Press Argus Courier and Alma Journal in Van Buren, Ark.
Rivers will focus primarily on the School of Nursing, contributing stories to VUMC publications as well as working with local and national media on news stories involving the school. She most recently has done marketing communications consulting work with, among others, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
Prior to that Rivers spent nine years at McNeely Piggott & Fox Public Relations in Nashville, where she rose to account supervisor and handled media relations, marketing and public relations duties for a variety of local and regional clients in varied industries, including health care, retail, government and consumer products. She received her bachelors degree from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.
"Kathy and Craig are great additions to News and Public Affairs,” said Wayne Wood, director of publications. “They are outstanding people in the communications field and I know that people around the Medical Center and University will enjoy getting to know them, both in person and in print."
In addition to its multi-faceted media relations work, the Office of News and Public Affairs also publishes House Organ; Vanderbilt Medicine, VUSM's alumni Magazine; Vanderbilt Nurse; EQ, a quarterly benefits and HR insert into the Reporter; Momentum, the newsletter of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; On Their Way, the newsletter of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt; and Lens, a quarterly science magazine.