After a celebrated career of nearly 37 years in the healthcare communications discipline, Saint Thomas Health Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Rebecca Climer has announced her retirement effective Jan. 2, 2017.

Climer began her career as director of Staff Development at Rutherford Hospital, now Saint Thomas Rutherford, in 1980. Within two years, she was named director of Public Affairs and established the public relations function at the hospital. Over the next several years, she added customer relations, internal communications and marketing to the function and was named vice president of Public Affairs in 1986. In that role, Climer oversaw traditional communications functions and added patient satisfaction and physician relations efforts under her umbrella.

In 1989, the planning function was added to her responsibilities and Climer oversaw strategic planning through several efforts including the expansion of the original hospital's footprint, addition of advanced services, and work with local elected officials in the purchase of the land for a new facility that opened in 2010.

In 2002, she was named vice president of Marketing for Saint Thomas Health, the ministry created when Ascension/Saint Thomas Health purchased the assets of the former Baptist Healthcare System. In the years since, she has overseen the consolidation of all Saint Thomas hospital-based marketing and communications departments into a single ministry-wide team and the renaming and rebranding of all hospitals and entities within Saint Thomas Health. Following the rebranding effort, she oversaw the development of the Saint Thomas "Nothing shall be Impossible" communication platform and campaign, which has won more than 30 local, regional and national awards for healthcare advertising and promotion.