AANA Honorary Membership recognizes and pays tribute to an individual’s commitment to the profession of nurse anesthesia and the AANA. Rivera has provided more than 35 years of service at AANA, supporting staff and AANA state associations, helping AANA to grow, and positively influence the healthcare of the country.
“The nurse anesthesia profession is important to the delivery of patient care, and I am proud to have served it over the course of my career. I look forward to seeing the continued growth and success of AANA,” Rivera said.
With this honorary membership, AANA recognized Rivera for his years of service to AANA in various roles beginning in 1986. Since 2011, he has served as AANA senior director, State Management Affairs. His responsibilities include developing the goals, objectives, and implementation plan for a multi-divisional 50-state service strategy to align efforts between state associations and AANA to enhance strategic partnerships. He was instrumental in the development and implementation of a program to financially assist all state associations with organizational development and advocacy initiatives.
Prior to his current position, Rivera was senior director, Executive Affairs for AANA where he implemented new governance and leadership development and external professional relationships. During this time he also developed AANA’s first-ever comprehensive information technology strategic plan and provided oversight for the implementation of new organization-wide association management and content management solutions.
Rivera’s professional memberships include the Association Forum of Chicagoland and ASAE:The Center for Association Leadership. He has been a Certified Association Executive (CAE) since 2000.
He received his master’s degree in business administration and his bachelor of science degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.