Cathy Kennedy is President of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), and a Vice President of National Nurses United (NNU), the largest U.S. union and professional association of registered nurses. CNA/NNOC is an affiliate of NNU.
Cathy graduated from Samuel Merritt/Saint Mary’s College and has worked as a registered nurse for the past 40 years. She’s currently a staff nurse at Kaiser Permanente Roseville (Women and Children’s Center) in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
In 2013, Cathy was appointed as a Commissioner by the California State Senate to the California Healthcare Workforce Policy Commission (CHWPC) which is under the direction of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD).
Cathy has also volunteered as a nurse leader representing NNU’s Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), a disaster relief network of volunteer nurses. RNRN has engaged in domestic and global disaster relief missions for more than a dozen years.
In October 2017, Cathy acted as lead nurse on a deployment of 50 RNRN volunteers to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, coordinating with a 300-union member relief delegation from the AFL-CIO. After returning, on November 2, 2017, Cathy testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Energy, sounding the alarm on the deadly lack of food, water and shelter the RNRN volunteers witnessed in Puerto Rico.
Cathy believes that health care is a human right.