Erika Olivares

Erika Olivares Sumner has been in the communications industry for nearly fifteen years, primarily as a television journalist. Originally from the Houston area, Erika moved back to Houston in 2002 to work as a fill-in news anchor and traffic anchor for Time Warner Cable’s all news channel ‘News 24 Houston’. While there, Erika specialized in day-to-day live, breaking traffic related stories, including major freeway construction projects and accidents.

Before moving to Houston, Erika worked for six years as a news anchor and reporter at KXAN-TV in Austin, Texas. While at News 36, Erika worked many significant news events including the Texas A&M bonfire tragedy with her reports being carried by nearly 90 NBC affiliate stations across the country. She has also covered numerous state-wide elections including that of then governor George W. Bush and the F-5 tornado that hit Jarrell, Texas in 1997. Erika’s past awards include Austin’s Goodwill Industries Media Person of the Year for television news coverage, the Austin area American Red Cross Achievement Award for unique disaster relief coverage and she was awarded the Capital Area Food Bank’s Outstanding Media Coverage Award following a series of special reports about the food bank’s special efforts to combat area hunger.

Erika has also worked as television news reporter and anchor in Corpus Christi, Texas. She began her career as a broadcast production assistant in Austin, graduating from the University of Texas there. Erika has also worked in the corporate communications sector at Dell Computer and Maxwell Automotive. While at Dell, she developed key diversity initiatives and served as a speech writer for Michael Dell and other executives.

Erika is currently a freelance public relations specialist and living in Houston with her husband and two children.