STA FF profile
LEAH BREHM
When it comes to her car eer, Leah
Brehm has always known what she wanted: a job
that allowed her to pursue her interests in public
health and communications. Her father was an
English major, and her mother served as the senior
director of communications for the Arkansas
Department of Health.
“My mom worked on the ‘Stamp out Smoking’
campaign, and ever since then, I’ve been interested
in managing different types of campaigns. I also
really wanted to get into health care.”
After graduating from the University of Arkansas
with a journalism degree, with an emphasis in public relations, she didn’t just wait for a job to land in
her lap. Leah took matters into her own hands and
made several cold calls to the administrative assistant for a hospital marketing and communications
department. She asked if there were any openings
for internships or entry-level jobs.
After three calls, she lucked out. The hospital’s
manager of internal communications was available to talk with Leah. And after a couple of interviews, she was hired. During her five years with
that Dallas pediatric hospital, Leah served in
numerous areas, including media relations, service
line marketing and brand marketing.
A friend of hers, who has worked for the Baylor
Health Care System Foundation for several years,
began talking to Leah about how much he loved
his job. Last summer when an officer position
became open on the team, he told Leah about the
opportunity. She went for it — and got it.
Though this is Leah’s first role in working for a
foundation, she says there are many similarities
between her new job and her previous ones. She
still works with specific service lines, including
women and children’s, population health, clinically integrated networks and dermatology. “The
fundraising tactics are similar to those in marketing — just with a different objective and
audience.”
Leah leads the Board Giving Campaign, and
she’s also been involved in fundraising for a new
infant-feeding and diagnostic program in the neonatal ICU. In addition, she’s heading up a campaign to raise funds for an up-and-coming nursing education program.
Leah is happy she joined the Foundation. “The
culture at Baylor can’t