St. Louis—In an effort to better communicate with its members and to expand its services, the National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) has appointed Anita Howard as director of communications. In her new role, Howard will be responsible for coordinating all communications for the association, including press releases, marketing brochures, newsletters, educational materials and member communications.

Howard, who has more than 15 years experience specializing in employee benefits, corporate and marketing communications, most recently worked as a freelance writer. Before that, she served as director of marketing communications for Boatmen’s Trust Co. of St. Louis. She began her career at C&B Consulting Group, also based in St. Louis. During her career, Howard has been responsible for the development of business-to-business marketing brochures, employee benefit manuals, direct mail campaigns, employee and customer newsletters, videos, press releases, and corporate Web sites.

“Anita’s background and experience will help us to more effectively meet the needs of our members as we expand our services and improve our communications efforts with our membership,” said Ed Korczak, executive director. “What I hope to do is,” explained Howard, “improve communications between NWFA and our members. We have approximately 2,500 members, and I am going to strive to communicate with them on a more consistent basis than we have in the past. “We are currently talking about increasing the frequency of our newsletter, which we now publish quarterly,” she added, “and we are also reviewing alternatives on how we might change that communication, whether we will continue in a printed format or change to an electronic one. “I’m excited about joining the organization—it does many positive things for our members,” she concluded, “but we haven’t done a very good job communicating with our membership about all the opportunities and possibilities that are available to them. I hope I’ll be able to fill that gap.”

For additional information on NWFA, call 636/391-5161.