About Our Speaker

Vincent Rhodes serves as Associate Vice President, Marketing & Communications for Eastern Virginia Medical School — a medical school founded in the early 1970s from a grassroots community effort to attract high-quality physicians to the Hampton Roads area. In this capacity, he oversees public and media relations, content marketing, crisis communications, executive communications, creative services and digital media.

Previously Rhodes served as Communications Manager and Clerk of the School Board for Norfolk Public Schools, the largest urban school system in Virginia and one of the top 150 largest school systems in the country. Prior to becoming an educator, Rhodes served as managing editor of the national scuba diving magazine Sport Diver and as a scuba instructor. His dive travels led him across the globe from the Caribbean to the Central Pacific to the North Pole. His dive experiences include exploration under the Arctic ice, visiting World War II plane and shipwrecks in the Pacific, and visiting underwater caves.

Rhodes has been a freelance graphic designer and feature writer since 1992 and his work has been recognized with a variety of awards from PR News, Vital Speeches of the Day, the Association of American Medical Colleges, PRSA, PRSA Hampton Roads, the National School Public Relations Association, the Florida Magazine Association and others. He and his team have earned nearly 80 regional and national awards including two PRSA Awards of Excellence (finalist for the SIiver Anvil).

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Biology from James Madison University and a Master’s degree in Professional Writing and Rhetoric from Old Dominion University. He earned his PhD in New Media and Professional Writing at ODU.