RoseAnn DeMoro

Personal life and education

DeMoro was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1949. She grew up in a working-class neighborhood and married her "high school sweetheart", Don DeMoro, in 1978. They have two children. She attended Southern Illinois University, earning a degree in women's studies. After obtaining her degree, the family moved to Santa Barbara, California where she began to work on a PhD in sociology. While working on her PhD she took time off to work as an organizer for the American Federation of Teachers and the University of California clerical workers. After giving up her studies she worked for the Teamsters as the first female organizer for the Western Conference of Teamsters. DeMoro says that she found the degree of sexism she experienced while working for the Teamsters "intolerable" and in 1986 she took a collective bargaining position at the California Nurses Association. She states, "When I came to work for the nurses, I felt like I could finally breathe. There is a real women’s culture of collaboration and self-organization."

Career

DeMoro is the Executive Director of National Nurses United, the largest professional and labor organization of registered nurses in the United States. De Moro is also the Executive Director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

DeMoro has profiled in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Business Week, and the Chicago Tribune, DeMoro has also appeared on a number of national and California news programs, including Bill Moyers Journal, CBS' 60 Minutes, PBS' Now, and the Lehrer News Hour.

Honors and awards

DeMoro has been named "America's Best & Brightest" by Esquire magazine, dubbed "The Most Influential Woman You've Never Heard Of" by More magazine, honored as among "America's Most Influential Women" by MSN, and one of only eight people to be cited among the "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" for 14 consecutive years by Modern Healthcare magazine.