2022 WVNA Election of Officers - NOW Underway Oct 1-15

Posted over 2 years ago by Julie Huron

The WVNA 2022 elections are open! Check your email for your voter ID & voter key. If you can't find your voter ID and voter key, please message the Central Office .

Make sure you have your Voter ID & Voter Key (it was emailed October 1st) and you can click here to vote in the 2022 WVNA Election of Officers.

Announcements will be made at the WVNA Membership Assembly during the Virtual Conference October 20, 2022. You can register to attend HERE!

WV Nurses Association Office of President Elect

The president-elect shall assume all the duties of the president in the president’s absence, shall serve as a board liaison for committee chairs, and shall be a member of both the Health Policy and Legislation Committee and WVN-PAC.

Donte Newsom, DNP, FNP-BC (he/him/his)

Current Committees:

WVNA Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Co-Chair

WVNA Bylaws Committee Member

Donte Newsom, DNP, FNP-BC, is a family nurse practitioner working in interventional radiology at Allegany Imaging, PC, and UPMC Western Maryland. He is also an adjunct instructor for the family nurse practitioner program at Simmons University. Dr. Newsom earned a BSN, MSN, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice all from West Virginia University.

A leader in human and civil rights in West Virginia, Dr. Newsom pursued his Doctor of Nursing Practice with the goal of opening pathways to improve nursing and health care practice. Newsom aspires to influence practice change and shape how care is delivered in the future.

Donte currently serves as a board member with Fairness West Virginia, the statewide human/civil rights organization devoted to equal rights for all LGBTQ+ West Virginians. He also serves as a medical officer for Mountaineer Boys State, a board member for The Connecting Link, and on the WVNA Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee (DEI).

Donte is a Fairmont, West Virginia, native and spent most of his life in north central WV. He currently lives in Mineral County.

Sara Vincelli, MSN, FNP-BC, (she/her)

Current Position and Committees:

WVNA Secretary

WVNA Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Chair

WVNA Bylaws Committee Member

Sara Vincelli, is a clinical nurse educator with the MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center (MAAETC) in Morgantown. In addition to her role as an HIV/AIDS clinical nurse educator, she serves her community in a rural, free, and charitable clinic. Born and raised in Charleston, SC, she earned her BSN at the University of South Carolina. For over three years, Sara provided care as a bedside nurse in a cardiothoracic surgical intermediate care unit in Asheville, NC, and then in the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU) in Morgantown with WVU Medicine. The entirety of her professional nursing career has consisted of providing care to the folks of Appalachia.

Sara aims to advocate for the destigmatization of health issues, such as infectious diseases like HIV and viral hepatitis, substance use disorder, and other mental health diagnoses. She values inclusive and equitable care, LGBTQIA+ rights, cultural humility, health literacy, and preventative health care.

Sara recently graduated from Regis University’s family nurse practitioner program, which focuses on rural and underserved communities. Vincelli became involved with the WVNA in March 2021 and was elected WVNA Secretary in 2021. Additionally, she has contributed to the Bylaws / Policy and Procedures Committee and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, as well as facilitating the partnership with the WVNA and MAAETC to enhance WVNA’s Pride educational series. She feels deeply that nurses are to care for the whole person. As such, nurses are uniquely positioned to do what they do best – advocate. Nurses have the capacity to passionately push to further the profession, in addition to supporting policy to enhance the overall wellness of patients, community, and state.

WV Nurses Association Office of Treasurer

The treasurer shall be chair of the Finance Committee, shall be accountable for the fiscal affairs of WVNA and shall provide reports and interpretation of WVNA’s financial condition, as may be requested, to the annual meeting of the Membership Assembly, the Board of Directors, and the membership.

Brad Phillips, PhD, RN, CNE (he/him/his)

Current Committees:

WVNA Nominations and Awards Committee

WVNA Events Planning Committee

Brad Phillips, PhD, RN, CNE, is currently a faculty member in the undergraduate and graduate nursing programs at West Virginia University where he teaches in the evidence-based practice, quantitative methods, and pediatric elective courses. His previous clinical experience includes a decade of practice in the pediatric intensive care unit. Dr. Phillips is a recent PhD graduate of West Virginia University, where his research aims to improve the health and well-being of parents of children with special health care needs. Brad is a 2018–2020 Jonas Nurse Scholar and a recipient of the Future of Nursing WV “40 under 40” award. Brad has served on the WVNA Nominations and Awards and Event Planning Committees for the past three years and is eager to serve in a more formal leadership role as an executive board member. His diligence, organization, and attention to detail will assist in his success in his role of treasurer, and he looks forward to continuing to further his knowledge of health care policy and advocacy.

WV Nurses Association Early Career Nurse

The Early Career Nurse has earned initial licensure as a registered nurse no longer than four years prior to his or her election, to serve a term of two years as a voting Director member of the Board.

Adam Guthrie, BSN, RN (he/him/his)

Current Committees:

WVNA Membership Committee Member

Adam Guthrie received his BS in the field of nursing from Marshall University in Huntington, WV. He is currently working in emergency medicine while completing his MSN with certification of a Family Nurse Practitioner from Chamberlain University which will be completed in 2022. He has been active in the field of nursing since 2020; starting his nursing career in the middle of a global pandemic. He has been involved with the West Virginia Nurses Association and the American Nurses Association since becoming a nurse and held committee positions within the Student Nurses Association prior to becoming a registered nurse. His primary settings to work include critical care and the emergency department.

Adam works alongside DKMS, a nonprofit organization, that strives to match potential bone marrow and stem cell donors to blood cancer patients as well. Adam has been involved with the DKMS organization since 2016 and has registered over 2,000 potential donors across the tristate region. Most of these efforts were conducted in his undergraduate studies with the Student Nurses Association as Marshall University. Adam’s community involvement goes beyond the West Virginia state line and expands across the country with Drum Corps International. Adam works with music ensembles year round to ensure marching arts members are safe when training and performing.

"You don't change the world simply by looking at it, you change it through the way you choose to live in it." - Amelia Wren

Luke Velickoff, RN, BSN, CCRN (he/they)

Current Position and Committees:

WVNA Early Career Nurse Board Member

WVNA Bylaws Committee Chair

WVNA Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee Member

WVNurses PAC Member

Luke Velickoff is a Registered Nurse from Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He graduated from West Virginia University with his Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2019 and began his career working at WVU Medicine’s Ruby Memorial Hospital in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU), where he still works today. Luke is currently pursuing his Master’s degree at Duke University and is a student in the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program. Luke is committed to the advancement of nursing research and education and has recently joined West Virginia University’s faculty for the School of Nursing.

Outside of the clinical and academic settings, Luke has a deep love for state law and policy and is the incumbent Early Career Nurse on the Executive Board of the West Virginia Nurses Association (WVNA). Politically, Luke is passionate about furthering LGBTQ+ rights in West Virginia and aims to improve the population’s access to individualized and affirmative health care in rural communities. In June of 2021, Luke helped to form the WVNA’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee and is committed to using his role to empower, advocate, and uplift the voices of those who are too often overlooked. Luke’s love for his Appalachian roots runs deep, and his primary desire is to do what he can to bring equitable health care to ALL of the citizens of his home state.

WV Nurses Association Voting Delegate to the ANA Membership Assembly

Brad Phillips, PhD, RN, CNE (he/him/his)

Current Committees:

WVNA Nominations and Awards Committee

WVNA Events Planning Committee

Luke Velickoff, RN, BSN, CCRN (he/they)

Current Position and Committees:

WVNA Early Career Nurse Board Member

WVNA Bylaws Committee Chair

WVNA Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee Member

WVNurses PAC Member

Moira Tannenbaum, MSN, APRN, CNM, IBCLC (she/her/hers)

Current Position and Committees:

WVNA Voting Delegate to ANA Membership Assembly

Editor, West Virginia Nurse

WVNA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee Member

WVNurses PAC Member

2018 WVNA “Politically Active Nurse of the Year"

Moira Tannenbaum currently serves as ANA voting delegate from WVNA, having been elected in 2020 for the 2021-2022 term. She’s running for a second and final term in this role. “I take the responsibility of representing West Virginia nurses with my votes and attendance very seriously, and I make sure to keep WV nurses at the center in this work,” Moira says.

Moira is a nurse, a midwife, a lactation consultant, and a certified correctional health professional. She attended Wayne State University in Detroit for her BSN and Frontier Nursing University for her MSN. Much of her advocacy work focuses on legislative and policy work to remove barriers to evidence-based, cost-effective care. This extends to patients (helping bring evidence-based guidelines to institutions), to health care providers (removing barriers that affect nurses and other health care providers, such as the work for APRN full practice authority and full prescriptive authority), and to health care entities (removing barriers to practices run by nurses, midwives, and other HCPs). She serves WVNA as a member of the DEI Task Force and the Events Committee and was named the WVNA “Politically Active Nurse of the Year” in 2018. Beyond WVNA, Moira just completed a five-year term on the board of the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC), with the last three years as vice president for government affairs and membership, and is the co-treasurer of the WV Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

WV Nurses Association Nominations and Awards Committee

Implement and oversee that the policies and procedures set forth by the WVNA Board of

Directors and adopted by the Membership Assembly for conducting a valid elections are

followed.

Brad Phillips, PhD, RN, CNE (he/him/his)

Current Position and Committees:

WVNA Nominations and Awards Committee

WVNA Events Planning Committee

Sandra "Sam" Cotton, DNP, APRN, ANP-BC, FNAP (she/her/hers)

Current Position and Committees:

WVNA Nominations and Awards Committee Member

WVNA Events Committee Member

WVNurses PAC Member (Ex-Officio Chair)

Sandra “Sam” Cotton is a Clinical Associate Professor at West Virginia University School of Nursing. She earned an Associate degree from Hocking College (1979), a Bachelor of Science (1984) and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice (2012) degrees from WVU, and a MS from the University of Maryland (1995). For many years, Sam was responsible for leading faculty practice, designed to support WVU’s research, teaching, and service missions. As an adult NP, she has seen patients and precepted students in a university internal medicine practice and a local free clinic for nearly 25 years. She is now focusing on more health policy, prevention, and wellness. Since Jan 2019 Dr. Cotton has been pursuing a post graduate certificate in Veterans and Military Health, through the University of Colorado, expected date of completion, December 2020!

A retired Lieutenant Colonel, Chief Nurse, and examiner flight nurse with the West Virginia Air National Guard, Sam is a 34+ year veteran of the United States Air Force; served in Gulf Wars I and II, including two tours with the 379th and 332nd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadrons in Balad, Iraq, as a Commander and Senior Flight Nurse, flying and caring for wounded troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Germany.

In 2007 she became a distinguished practitioner in the National Academy of Practice; has served as a nurse consultant and tireless advocate for APNs in West Virginia, and nationally, as Helene Fuld Academic Leadership and Penn Macy Academic Nursing Practice Fellows. In 2012, she received the DNP student Excellence and Alumni Leadership awards. In 2014, Dr. Cotton was named the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Practitioner Clinical Excellence Award of the Year for the state of West Virginia. A member of American Nurses Association since 1979, she is a past state vice-president and has chaired the APN Council and state Nurses PAC. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Cotton initially became a member, because our “nursing faculty said so!” Through WVNA, District 8, while living in Charleston in the early ‘80s. It was during this time the real value of belonging to ANA/WVNA became apparent, as lobbying for a real life issue nurses faced at the bedside, “end of life issues that had yet to catch up with technology”. “It seemed as if we were caring for mere ‘shells’ of a once vibrant human beings, who now were kept artificially ‘alive’ while waiting for nature to take its course”. However, nature was no longer in charge. She describes the days of “slow codes, CPR but no meds, meds but no CPR, CPR but no intubation, or intubation but no CPR began. It was terrible, to see a family torn by the hope of technology, knowing the personal belief system that their loved one would not want any of these tubes and wires connected to them, yet helpless to make it different. Lobbying for one of the first versions of the WV Natural Death Act was empowering. My patients may no longer have their voice, but I could use my voice to make a change. And so it has been ever since...” Cotton also states she would never miss an election, “especially seeing people in other countries die for the right to vote”.