Keith Bowermaster, APR, President, PRSA Miami

Keith Bowermaster is a nationally published and award winning writer and photographer, with more than 10 years of public relations and communications experience. He received is bachelor's degree from the University of Florida and is currently working towards a master's degree at the University of Miami.

Keith began his career with the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department as a Public Information Officer (PIO) performing employee and media relations. As an on-call PIO, Keith would respond to incidents where news media had gathered and provide information to the media, both on and off-camera. Some of the larger incidents included the crash of ValueJet 592 and the fire aboard Carnival Cruise Lines' Ecstasy cruise ship.

From there he went to Baptist Health of South Florida, a local healthcare system with six hospitals and multiple outpatient facilities. As Marketing and Public Relations Web Coordinator, he was responsible for all of the content on the organization's Web site, which included writing new content and managing content submitted by other departments. He also did traditional writing for both internal and external audiences.

As the Online Communications Manager here at UM, Keith is responsible for the content of many of the pages on the UM Web site. He also writes the faculty/staff electronic newsletter, e-Veritas, which is sent in both an HTML and plain-text version to more than 13,000 mailboxes each Monday and Thursday. Other responsibilities include playing a key role in the crisis communications team for the University.

Keith is Accredited in Public Relations (APR) by the Universal Accreditation Board, one of less than 50 accredited members in the South Florida area. He currently serves as President of the Miami chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.