Linda Rutherford is Senior Vice President, Chief Communications Officer, for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, the nation’s largest airline in terms of domestic Customer boardings. Responsibilities include overseeing media relations, special event planning, crisis communications, emergency response and business continuity planning, community relations and charitable giving, corporate community affairs, public relations, social business, multimedia and visual communication, legislative communication/grassroots activities, Southwest’s Speaker’s Bureau, culture services, change leadership, and employee communications. Prior to joining Southwest Airlines in 1992, she was a journalist in the Dallas area, including working for the Dallas Times Herald, and she began her career with Newsweek magazine in New York.