Wild Iris was founded by and is owned by caregivers like you.
Wild Iris Medical Education, Inc. is a privately-owned company providing healthcare continuing education since 1999. The company first went online with accredited nursing continuing education courses and has since expanded to offer CE for nursing case managers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, paramedics, EMTs, and other healthcare professionals. Headquartered in the coastal redwoods of Northern California, the company takes its name from the profusion of purple iris that bloom each spring.
As caregivers, we understand some of the pressures of your life. So we work hard to make getting your CEUs as easy as possible and to provide you with relevant, well-written, interesting course material and challenging learning experiences. Learn more about our Services and Benefits and find out why you can trust Wild Iris.
If you’re responsible for providing CE to your staff, we’ll make both of your lives a little simpler. We can offer group discounts, combined billing and other services. To find out more, view our Group Accounts page, or contact us for more information.
Ann Johnson, RN
Chief Executive Officer
Ann Johnson is co-founder and CEO of Wild Iris Medical Education. She is a registered nurse and has worked in many areas of nursing. Ann's last hospital job was as Emergency Department Manager and Director of the Drug-Free Workplace Program at Ukiah Valley Medical Center in Ukiah, California. She was also a nursing instructor for five years at College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg, California. She now enjoys being able to combine her thirty years of hospital nursing with her love of the computer and education.
Ann lives and works from her property in the redwoods of California. She has spent the last twenty-three years as a fire fighter with the Comptche Volunteer Fire Department. Ann and her husband spend their free time walking their dogs on the beach.
Randal Stuart MacDonald, BA, CSDP
Chief Technology Officer, Technical Director
Randy MacDonald has been working with networked computer systems since the mid-1980s and is an expert in software development, including Internet programming, web-database integration, and e-commerce systems. He is conversant with a wide variety of software technology platforms and programming languages. Randy is an IEEE-certified software development professional.
Randy is responsible for the programming and management of all technical systems used by Wild Iris Medical Education. He custom-designed the Wild Iris content management system, a comprehensive relational database, and the site-wide e-commerce continuing education system for the company. Each is built in accordance with professional software development standards.
Randy earned a bachelor's degree with honors, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Oregon in 1990. Randy is also a volunteer fire fighter and second assistant chief for the Comptche (CA) Volunteer Fire Department.
Persis Mary Hamilton, RN, CNS, MS, EdD
WIME Board Member, Writer
Persis Hamilton worked for many years as Wild Iris's nurse planner to ensure compliance with guidelines of the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She serves on the Wild Iris Board of Directors and continues to write courses. Persis has a rich background in nursing, nursing education, and writing. She has written fourteen nursing textbooks for two major publishers and several courses for Wild Iris. Her master's degree focused on community mental health nursing and her doctoral dissertation investigated the relationship of learning to behavioral objectives and visual design in a textbook.
Over the years Persis has worked in most areas of nursing and she taught for more than forty years in vocational, associate, baccalaureate, and graduate nursing programs. She has served as an item writer for the League for Nursing and as principal speaker in numerous continuing education workshops. While serving on the faculty at the University of Guam, Persis conducted research into the high rate of suicide in Micronesia.
Margaret M. Craig, RN, BSN, MSN
Nurse Planner
Margaret Craig joined Wild Iris in mid-2010. With over 40 years of nursing education experience, she was most recently Associate Dean of Nursing at Napa Valley College in California, and before that Dean of Health Occupations at Greenfield Community College in Massachusetts. She was a Visiting Professor in Western Australia and Guam.
As lead nurse planner and educator for Wild Iris, Margaret is responsible for determining that all of the offered nursing courses meet the standards of the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Commission on Accreditation. She has served on the Board of Review of the NLN’s Accrediting Commission, held district, statewide and national leadership roles in policy development and continuing education with the American Nurses Association, and was on the California Board of Nursing’s Advisory Committee.
Margaret has special interests in community health nursing, nursing education, evidence-based practice, and international nursing. She is an avid traveler and reader. Margaret earned her BSN at Columbia University in New York City and her Masters degree in Nursing at Boston University.
Susanna MacDonald, BA
Web Producer
Susanna MacDonald has designed and produced websites since 1996, first as senior partner of a web development company for five years and then as an independent contractor providing services to companies across the United States and Ireland. Her wide range of skills in comprehensive website design include site architecture and planning, navigation and usability, web standards implementation, graphics production, form design, and CSS-HTML coding.
Susanna is responsible for maintaining the Wild Iris Medical Education websites, and design, planning and implementation of future website improvements. She also designs UIs for the company's internal systems, assists with project management, and provides technical services for a variety of projects and staff.
Susanna earned a bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Oregon in 1990.
Dennis Crean
Managing Editor
Dennis Crean has worked as freelance editor and graphic designer since 1998, following a dozen years in nonprofit administration. He works primarily for nonprofit, educational, and religious-based organizations, focusing especially on Buddhist publications. His clients have included Inquiring Mind journal, Parallax Press, Institute for World Religions, and the University of California AIDS Research Program, to name a few. Dennis earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1985.
His interests include Buddhism, cycling, backpacking, and vegetarianism. He lives with his wife, an aspiring nurse, in Redwood Valley, California.
Janis MacDonald
Marketing Director
Janis MacDonald began her career as a certified nurse assistant, then worked in Medical Records under the supervision of the Tumor Board. Later she carried her interpersonal skills to the trade show industry where she accumulated thirty years' experience with professional and trade associations. As a consultant, her clients ranged from the American Dental Association to the American Trucking Association. As Marketing Director for Wild Iris, Janis manages media, existing corporate accounts and responds to requests for master accounts and partnerships.
Janis is also a community volunteer serving as president of her local Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary and she is active in supporting the local arts community.
Anja Grimes
Executive Assistant
Anja Grimes graduated as a nationally examined foreign language correspondent in English and French in her native Germany. After several years as a correspondent, Anja joined an international medical supply company as an Export Sales Manager, selling medical supplies ranging from sundries to hospital equipment. In 1999 she moved to the United States and was employed as an Accounting and Human Resources Manager at a German import/export business in San Francisco for over eight years. Now, as a Mendocino Coast resident, Anja is able to combine her interest in medicine with her experience in sales and customer satisfaction to provide our customers with excellent customer service.
In her spare time, Anja volunteers to teach German at a local elementary school, enjoys exercising, and loves to travel.
In addition to reducing the time demands on you, we try to reduce our demands on the environment.
Completing your CE online means you don’t have to drive to classes. All materials are available on our site, reducing paper usage. Alll of our employees telecommute, reducing carbon emissions even more.
They’re little things…
that can add up to a lot.
We are headquartered in Comptche, California, nestled in the northern coastal redwoods (the photo at the top of our pages was taken in Montgomery Woods State Reserve).
Purple wild irises bloom in profusion here each spring and were the inspiration behind the company's name.
We know that meeting all of your needs for your professional career can be stressful, so we hope to share a little bit of peace and quiet with you by means of our website's design.
