John Hope

I have been a full-time journalist and communications executive and trainer for 40 years. My career started in the Pittsburgh (PA) bureau of United Press International in 1968, where I covered everything from the daily area egg prices to a West Virginia coal mine cave-in, the shootings at Kent State University, the 1968 presidential campaign as it traveled through western Pennsylvania, and the murder of United Mineworkers leader Jock Yablonski and his wife and daughter.

In 1970 I transferred to UPI’s Harrisburg bureau to cover the General Assembly and Pennsylvania state government, and then moved to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Harrisburg bureau.

I left hard news to become Director of Public Information with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and then held communications executive positions with Pennsylvania Blue Shield and The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. While leading the communications program at The Hospital and Healthsystem Association I won two APEX awards for advocacy communication materials.

With the background in healthcare gained from 15 years of working for a health insurer and hospital trade association, I returned to journalism as a full-time freelance writer and editor. My work has appeared in Modern Healthcare, State Health Watch, FDA Review, FDA Update, DTC Marketer, Indoor Environmental Quality Newsletter, Drug Formulary Review, Occupational Safety Letter, and HIPAA Regulatory Alert. For several of those newsletters I was the sole writer/editor for a period of years.

I have conducted workshops in effective communications, writing skills, and proofreading techniques; taught a college course in public relations; and presented Adventures in Attitudes courses for my local chapter of the American Bankers Association.

In all that I write, I try to remain true to my initial training as a wire service reporter. The goal is always to take complex information and make it accessible and useful to my readers, while also being as interesting and entertaining as the material will permit. I look forward to writing from my healthcare, management, and other experience for Suite 101.