Minnesota Nurses Association names new executive director

After a four-month nationwide search, the Minnesota Nurses Association has named Erin Murphy, a registered nurse from St. Paul, as its executive director, the union announced. She will lead a growing membership representing 15,500 of the state’s registered nurses, a staff of 40 and a budget of over $5 million. The Association has operated without a permanent executive director since the fall of 2000.

Murphy returned to a staff position at the Association in January as a governmental affairs specialist. She had devoted seven years to a similar position with MNA from 1990-1997. In the interim she gained leadership expertise while employed as legislative director for then-Minnesota Attorney General Skip Humphrey. She also served as director of community relations for the Department of Children, Families and Learning and executive director of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota.

‘Erin brings vibrancy and exceptional savvy to this position,’ said Monica Vollmuth, MNA Board of Directors 2nd vice president and chair of its Personnel Committee. ‘I am confident her foundation in nursing as well as her acquired and natural range of skills will quickly advance the association, nursing and healthcare, and fortify our status in the labor arena as a leading advocate for nurses in the workplace.’

Vollmuth noted that in this time of an acknowledged dire shortage of nurses, Murphy’s track record for coalition-building should prove especially constructive.

Murphy plans to implement those skills immediately. ‘As the largest workforce within the health care delivery system, registered nurses demonstrate the importance of their distinctive contributions every day,’ she said. ‘I look forward to focusing the Association’s efforts to promote the value of registered nursing, and to assure that registered nurses have a strategic role in shaping a new health care delivery system of unwavering safe patient care.’

With more than 15,500 members, MNA is the leading organization for registered nurses in the Midwest and is among the oldest and largest representatives of RNs for collective bargaining in the nation.

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