Catherine West is the great-great-great-niece of James Buchanan, 15th president of the United States, and great-granddaughter of his longtime ward and later White House private secretary, James Buchanan Henry, the first in that position to be funded by Congress. In fact, her father’s desk was Buchanan’s desk in the White House, a gift from the government of India that Catherine and her siblings later donated to Buchanan’s historic home of Wheatland in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
A retired marketing communications executive, Catherine most recently served as vice president of marketing and communications at the Minnesota Medical Foundation and vice president of communications at the national headquarters of the Alzheimer’s Association. Her teams there and at Northwestern University won numerous national and international awards for publications, websites, videos, and media relations.
Since retiring to Florida, Catherine has served on the Nassau County Library Advisory Board and on the boards of the Amelia Community Theatre; the Friends of the Library, Nassau County, Inc., Fernandina Beach; and the Nassau County Council on Aging. She has appeared onstage in 23 local productions, most recently portraying the late Texas Governor Ann Richards in the one-woman show, Ann.
Catherine holds a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Yale College and a master of divinity from the University of Chicago. She and her husband, Charles, live in Fernandina Beach, Florida.
