Nancy Woodhull was president of Nancy Woodhull & Associates, Inc., a media research and consulting firm based in Pittsford, NY. The company worked with media companies in understanding changing consumer trends and with Fortune 500 companies in understanding media trends. The company was founded by Ms. Woodhull. A special emphasis of the company was understanding the changing woman consumer and woman worker.

Woodhull was a founding editor of USA Today in 1982 and its first managing editor of news. After the launch of USA TODAY, she was named president of Gannett News Service, a national wire service, and Gannett News Media, a research and development division of the Gannett Company, which under her direction, developed USA TODAY Radio and USA TODAY Books.

In 1990, she joined Southern Progress Corporation, owned by Time, Inc., as an executive vice president and editor in chief of five magazines, including Southern Living, where she directed the redesign of the 2-million circulation magazine.

In 1992, she started a media research and consulting company (Nancy Woodhull & Associates, Inc.) focused on helping media companies understand their changing readers, viewers and listeners. Her clients have included major media companies both in the USA and abroad.

Woodhull was also on the advisory boards of New Directions for News, a newspaper "think tank" at the University of Missouri, and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland. She was vice chair of the International Women's Media Foundation and president of the board of the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Ms. Woodhull was also a trustee of the Freedom Forum and chair of the Peabody Board, the "Pulitzer Prize" for radio and television.

In January 1996, she joined the University of Rochester as a scholar in residence. She directed students in doing several nationally renown media studies on media's coverage of several major groups and topics, including crime, religion and Generation X. The results of these studies have been featured in national publications and broadcast networks.

Woodhull was also noted for her community service. She assisted the Women's Center in Virginia, an organization that offers counseling and workshops. She also created the center's Information and Career Advisory Network ( I CAN), a mentoring association. As past president of the National Women's Hall of Fame Board of Directors, Woodhull helped raise $100,000 which prevented the Hall of Fame from closing.

On April 17, 1997, at the age of 52, Ms. Woodhull died at her Pittsford, N.Y. home. She is survived by her husband and their daughter, Tennessee.

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