News Release

December 20, 2001

Joan Kirby Joins the Cato Institute to Head the Media Relations Team

WASHINGTON--The Cato Institute today is pleased to announce the addition of Joan Kirby as director of media relations.

As director, Ms. Kirby will oversee a five-member media relations team. She will provide vision, strategic direction, and day-to-day management to the department. Among her duties will be to promote Cato's commitment to peace, individual liberty, and the proper role of government, an issue of special importance as the nation wages war against terrorism. Ms. Kirby also will oversee press activity around Cato's 25th anniversary, which occurs in May 2002.

Ms. Kirby comes to the Cato Institute from the Washington office of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), a Dallas-based free market think tank. There, Kirby served as director of government and media affairs--responsible for marketing NCPA's policy ideas on health care and other domestic policy issues to the Hill and Washington press.

Prior to joining the NCPA in 1994, Kirby worked in the motion picture industry for Hollywood Pictures, a division of the Walt Disney Company, the William Morris Agency, and the Directors Guild of America, among others. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1974 with a degree in radio, television and motion picture production, where her studies included journalism.

"I am excited to have the opportunity to help represent Cato's team of cutting-edge scholars on a wide range of public policy issues--issues based on the American Founders' vision of liberty and constitutionally limited government," Kirby said

"We are thrilled that Joan has decided to join Cato," said Communications Vice President Richard Pollock. "This is a very special time for those concerned about issues of peace and individual liberty. Cato's media relations team already has raised our profile to the point where we are the second most frequently cited think tank in Washington. With Joan at the helm we know she will move our ideas to a new level of appreciation and visibility."