Writer, storyteller, artist, and musician, Anne co-founded the Preeclampsia Foundation in 1999 following her third near-miss in childbirth. She led the organization as the first Executive Director until October 2004, and as President of the Board until December 2006. She went on to help launch the Lake Washington Schools Foundation, the Microsoft Alumni Foundation, and several other nonprofits. She is a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) and works with Alaska Public Media as the Director of their comprehensive campaign, Together We Are Stronger.
In 2012, she co-founded the Unexpected Project with Jennifer Binkley Carney, after reading the 2010 report, “Deadly Delivery: the Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA,” by Amnesty International. The Unexpected Project is 100% volunteer-led and gives a voice to survivors of pregnancy-related death and near-miss in the U.S.
Anne has been featured in print in Glamour, and Good Housekeeping, in television and online media with L’Oréal-Paris (commercials), radio interviews with Voice of America, KSKA, KUOW, WBUR, and in her Huffington Post column under the name: Anne Addison.
In 2007 she was selected as a L’Oréal-Paris Women of Worth, and in 2008 invited back to serve as a judge with Soledad O’Brien, Jacqueline Hernandez, and the Thousand Points of Light team. In 2018, she was selected by Good Housekeeping as one of “Ten Women Who Live to Save Lives,” as part of their 50 Women Over 50 series. Additionally, she has provided insight and resources for stories on the TODAY show, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and ProPublica’s “Lost Mothers” series.
Anne is a sought after motivational speaker and has presented at conferences for the White Ribbon Alliance (New Delhi, India), the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy (Toronto, Canada and Vienna, Austria), an EngenderHealth working group (funded by the MacArthur Foundation) at the Saïd School of Business (Oxford, England), keynote for her 25th college reunion (St. Olaf College), the first and second Unexpected Project’s survivors forums funded by Lucina Maternity and Valley Medical Center (San Jose, CA), and the California chapter of AWHONN (Napa, CA), and as the keynote for the 2020 Central New York Regional Perinatal Symposium (online).
Anne has a BA in Fine Arts, St. Olaf College (Junior Year at the Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Oxford, England), and an MA in Education, City University. She was the Microsoft Alumni Scholar for Accelerating Social Transformation and Change program at the Evans School of Public Affairs and Governance, University of Washington, and a full scholarship student to TheFilmSchool’s screenwriter’s Boot Camp.
Anne’s personal mission is to use storytelling as a path for healing and transformation. Her greatest strength is her ability to connect with people, hear their stories and help them share them in a way that honors their pain and loss.
Her greatest and most humbling life experience, however, has been being the mother of four extraordinary men: Jonathan, Sebastian, Kieran, and Gabriel. Anne lives in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska with her dogs – Hailey and Thor, and cat Cuddles.
If you are interested in connecting with Anne, or booking her to speak, email her at anne@anne-garrett.com, find her on Facebook, or connect on LinkedIn.
