Category: 1990s

Allison Gardner Martin has been promoted to Senior Director, Corporate Citizenship and Digital Communications for GE Appliances (GEA).

In this new role, Allison will work to increase awareness, recognition and support for GEA’s Citizenship agenda in its journey to be recognized as the most admired, trusted and respected organization in the industry.

Allison also will lead GEA’s corporate digital communications, which includes the corporate website design, daily digital activations and company-owned social media platforms.

Allison joined the company in 2018 as director of employee communications after more than 20 years of experience working in journalism, communications, community relations and government affairs in the public and private sector.

Prior to joining GEA, Allison worked as Chief Communications Officer for Jefferson County Public Schools, Chief of Staff & Communications Director for Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway and Deputy Communications Director for Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson. Allison also worked for a decade as a broadcast journalist and news anchor.

Allison lives in Louisville, Ky. with her husband and two children. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism where she minored in Spanish and sociology.

Minnesota Public Radio named Duchesne Drew as its next president April 8, 2020.

Drew most recently an executive at the Bush Foundation and spent many years at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he rose through the ranks from a summer intern to managing editor of operations.

The MPR division within American Public Media Group includes MPR News, Classical MPR, The Current and digital services.

While at the Bush Foundation, Drew served as community vice president, in charge of creating networks across the region. He also sits on the boards of a number of organizations, including the African American Leadership Forum and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce.

“Charles Whitaker was a central part of my Medill experience,” Drew said. “Even though he focused on magazine journalists and I was heading toward a career as newspaper reporter, he made time for me and it mattered greatly, from conversations in his office to dinner at his house. I felt seen, valued and supported.”

He serves on the Leadership Council of Make It. MSP., an effort to attract “people from around the world” to live and work in the Twin Cities.

Photo courtesy of MPR.

Local news publisher Justin Kerr announced that grants from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the Chicago Headline Club will power local journalism for the McKinley Park neighborhood of Chicago in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. The McKinley Park News, Kerr’s micro-local news outlet that covers a single Chicago neighborhood, will use these funds to power a new journalism initiative to support the community.

“We are honored and humbled by this critical support for our publication,” Kerr said. “The pandemic has upended the already-battered news industry. This funding for Chicago journalism ensures our communities stay informed with reliable, high-quality news and information.”

The McKinley Park News is one of 48 recipients of the McCormick Foundation grant, which were awarded to both commercial and non-profit community news publications. The Chicago Headline Club disbursed grants of up to $500 each to help local journalists with their news reporting expenses.

The coronavirus crisis gets personal with the recently completed COVID-19 Writers Project (C19WP), a multimedia archive by Medill graduate Clara Zawadi Morris.

The COVID-19 Writers Project is a nod to the Federal Writers Project (FWP) conceived by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that produced the Slave Narrative Collection. These first-person narratives are archived in the U.S. Library of Congress and are considered some of the most important historical records to date.

Similarly, C19WP is a hyperlocal examination of the pandemic through first-person narratives (10 videos, and 10 written and photos essays) from inside one of the virus’s early hotspots – Brooklyn, NYC. The COVID-19 Writers project was supported by The National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, ThePulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and The American Medical Association. From the formerly incarcerated, to the struggling college student to the emergency room doctor, these first-person narratives offer an inside view of the pandemic’s diverse impact on America’s everyday citizens, ultimately helping to answer: What is the crisis telling us about who we are as a society today?

A career marketing leader, Gina Mehmert recently joined the team at Kheiron Medical – a tech startup committed to transforming cancer diagnostics through the power of deep learning – as Vice President of Global Commercial Marketing.

Gina will lead the global launch of the company’s first commercially available product, Mia – a breakthrough AI-enabled solution for breast screening that gives every woman, everywhere a better fighting chance against breast cancer.

“The Kheiron team is filled with incredibly smart, talented, driven people,” Gina said. “The culture here is one of passion and collaboration – and I’m thrilled to bring my marketing superpowers to the team.”

Prior to joining Kheiron, Gina held a variety of senior marketing positions with brand leaders such as GE Healthcare, HP, and Poly. After Medill she received her MBA from the University of Bristol in the U.K.