The Department of Communication is pleased to announce three upcoming mentor lunches. Don’t miss these opportunities to learn about potential careers, the realities of modern-day industry, and how to accomplish one’s goals. To RSVP for any of these events, email vsprang@uw.edu.

Tom Douthitt, a leader in sales, marketing, and business development

February 29, 12:00-1:00 p.m. CMU 102E

Reserve your spot by 5 p.m. on February 28 because space is limited!

Over the past 25 years, Tom Douthitt has held key management positions within large Fortune 500 companies (Eli Lilly, Guidant and Abbott Vascular), as well as in small start-up companies (Vascular Architects, Cardiac Dimensions, and most recently Pathway Medical Technologies).

For the past 11 years Tom has served at the vice president or Senior VP level responsible for sales, marketing, clinical trial development and execution, strategy development, new product development, and business development. Additionally, Tom has held both domestic and international responsibilities during this time.

Tom holds two masters degrees from Cornell University – an MBA from the S.C. Johnson school of business, and an Alfred P. Sloan Certificate in Health Administration from the college of Human Ecology.

Julie Peterson-Snyder, Technical Writer for Costco Wholesale

March 1, 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. CMU 102E

Reserve your spot by 5 p.m. on February 29 because space is limited!

Julie Peterson-Snyder (’86) is technical writer for Costco Wholesale. She has worked in various documentation departments and writing positions for Costco since the early nineties. She is certain her Communication degree helped her land her first documentation job with Costco, and it continues to apply directly to her work today. She creates content and publishes to a handful of her company’s employee intranet sites. Costco is practically paperless, creating all of their content for web publication. Julie has seen lots of changes over the years, but the skills she learned at the UW, such as interviewing subject-matter experts and applying various writing styles to that information, still applies today. Deliveries have changed, but not the basic process in which documentation products are created.

Ann Powers, NPR Music’s Critic and Correspondent

March 2, 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CMU 102E

Reserve your spot by 5 p.m. on February 29 because space is limited!

Ann Powers is NPR Music’s critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR’s music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR’s newsmagazines and music programs.

One of the nation’s most notable music critics, Powers has been writing for The Record, NPR’s blog about finding, making, buying, sharing and talking about music, since April 2011.

Powers served as chief pop music critic at the Los Angeles Times from 2006 until she joined NPR. Prior to the Los Angeles Times, she was senior critic at Blender and senior curator at Experience Music Project. From 1997 to 2001 Powers was a pop critic at The New York Times and before that worked as a senior editor at the Village Voice. Powers began her career working as an editor and columnist at San Francisco Weekly.

Her writing extends beyond blogs, magazines and newspapers. Powers co-wrote Tori Amos: Piece By Piece,with Amos, which was published in 2005. In 1999, Power’s book Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America was published. She was the editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of the 1995 book Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop and the editor of Best Music Writing 2010.>

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, Powers went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of California.