Alumna Annie Platt Joins Atreus Medical Surgical Associates as Nurse Practitioner
Press Release
Date: November 10, 2025
Contact: lgarrett@tctc.edu
Alumna Annie Platt Joins Atreus Medical Surgical Associates as Nurse Practitioner
PENDLETON –Tri-County Technical College alumna Annie Platt never realized how meaningful her experience at the College has been in and to her life until she returned to campus recently for a career fair.
It had been eight years since she graduated with an Associate Degree in Nursing. (She earned an Associate in Science degree in 2015.) At age 31, she was back on campus, this time as Dr. Annie Platt, DNP, full-time nurse practitioner who that day was recruiting new employees for another passion of hers, the Clemson Child Development Center (CCDC), which her grandparents founded and she now serves on its board of directors.
“I signed up to attend the Career Fair because I serve as secretary for the board of the CCDC that my grandparents, Albert and Berniece Holt, founded in 1969. We were looking to fill job openings and have since hired several TCTC Early Care and Education majors. My manager and I were so impressed with the caliber of students who were friendly and engaging. That is a testament to TCTC’s dedication to prioritizing students,” she said.
“Because I’m a TCTC graduate, I volunteered to represent CCDC at the fair. I hadn’t been on campus in a long time. I was blown away. I’m so proud to be an alumna.”
Platt said though TCTC may look different physically, with the remodeling of Oconee Hall and the renovation of Pickens Hall currently underway, it still maintains that student-centered focus, a vibe she appreciated as a freshman.
After touring Oconee Hall where she took her university transfer classes, and the Student Success Center that was under construction when she graduated, she reflected on the many life-changing positives she experienced as a student.
“Being back on campus, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t realize how bonded I was to TCTC and the impact it had on me,” she said. “TCTC is really important because it’s where I met my husband, Ryan Holley, a 2020 Associate in Arts graduate, and we both participated in the College’s Learning Beyond Campus (LBC) program, which was life changing.”
TCTC’s LBC program is an innovative and immersive summer program designed to transform community college students' engagement with history and literature. LBC is a six-week program that blends virtual instruction with on-location experiential learning in Boston and the surrounding New England area. The program is designed to help students experience history and literature firsthand by walking the very ground where America began to take shape. Earlier this year, the LBC program received the Community Colleges of Appalachia’s Instructional Program Award which recognizes innovative programs in CCA member colleges that have been designed and implemented to foster excellence in teaching and learning.
Platt says it was at TCTC that she found her calling in health care and where she made lifelong friends, which include LBC instructors whom she is still in contact with.
TCTC wasn’t on her radar as a Daniel High School student and an award-winning member of Daniel’s swim team and the Clemson Aquatic Team (CAT), a club team she was a member of from ages six through 19.
“The plan was always to be a member of the Clemson University swim team but my sophomore year in high school, the program was cut. My plans went out the window,” Platt said, and so did her desire to continue her education if she couldn’t participate as a competitive swimmer at Clemson.
The same year her mother had an emergency surgery so she devoted time to her mother’s recovery. She admits that when her junior year rolled around, academics weren’t at the top of the list.
“When I was 17, I talked to my parents about finishing high school another way and they agreed,” she said. With advice from a counselor, she finished the last semester of high school online and graduated in the 11th grade. One of those online classes was through TCTC’s dual enrollment program. “I walked with my Daniel graduating class and swam with a club team that year,” she said.
“When thinking about college, I wanted to stay close to my doctors because I have been a Type 1 diabetic since the age of three and I wear an insulin pump,” she said. She chose TCTC where she enrolled in Associate in Science classes and transferred to Clemson University. “Then a good friend of mine passed away and I lost all interest in school and dropped out,” she said.
Platt took a semester off, then headed back to TCTC, this time as an Associate Degree Nursing major.
“It was there I found the right program. I made a tight group of friends and we helped each other power through,” she said.
In 2013 she was part of the LBC trip to Boston, led by instructor Alex Eaton and former instructor Todd Crips Simons, fondly referred to as Coach.
This interdisciplinary program offers students the opportunity to earn six transferable credit hours in American History (HIS 201: Discovery to 1877) and Early American Literature (ENG 201) by combining virtual coursework with an intensive learning experience in Boston. Through this unique approach, LBC fosters academic engagement, historical literacy, critical thinking, and a deeper connection to American heritage. It’s a way of helping students see the relevance of what they’re learning, not just in textbooks, but in the world around them.
“LBC is at the top of my list,” said Platt. “It really helped me to be disciplined, and I appreciated TCTC even more. LBC is the most impactful experience of my young adulthood,” she added.
“When Ryan and I married in 2018, Coach welded a large piece of art for us that is a skyline of Boston. It hangs on the wall in our living room. LBC made me realize what education can be. It was the first time I had been to Boston. Alex and Coach are our biggest mentors.” During 2014 and 2015 she served as a teaching assistant for the trip and her husband accompanied her one year.
After graduating from TCTC, Platt joined the neurology department at AnMed and began pursuing a BSN at Clemson University in 2018 through AnMed’s tuition reimbursement program. She later worked for Hospice of the Foothills for three years and then transferred to Oconee Memorial Hospital working as an R.N. in the endoscopy and GI lab.
“I was ready to go back to school in 2022 and applied to the MUSC Adult Geriatric Nurse Practitioner (AGNP) program and was accepted to its three-year hybrid program. The AGNP program was a natural next step for me. I loved my grandparents, and they had excellent caregivers when I was in nursing school,” Platt said. Albert Holt was 99 and one-half years old when he passed and her grandmother, Berniece, served as president of the board of CCDC from 1969 to 1990. She passed away in 2020.
Earlier this year Platt simultaneously earned a master’s and a doctorate degree in adult geriatrics and was the only AGNP candidate to graduate in 2025. Her dissertation is being published in The Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice.
Less than a decade after graduating from TCTC, she said she never guessed she would have earned a doctorate degree. “But while enrolled in the AGNP program, I felt the same want as when I competed nationally as a competitive swimmer,” she said. She was a Clemson aquatic medalist and is a master swimmer now. She recently competed in the U.S. Masters open water national competition in Virginia and placed in the top 10, ranking eighth in the country for open water mile in the 30 – 34 age group. She also competes with the Greenville Splash Team.
Platt starts each day with a swim from 5:15 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. “Swimming clears my mind and balances the day, along with maintaining my blood sugar levels,” she said. Then she heads to her new job as a nurse practitioner at Atreus Medical Surgical Associates, a progressive private multispecialty medical group in Seneca offering ear, nose and throat care. “I’m so excited to work a subspeciality right after graduation,” Platt said.
She did her clinical training at Atreus, who hired her full time after she passed the board exam. “I love my job - it’s fun, rewarding and humbling. I learn something every day. Working at Atreus has turned out to be a full-circle moment. When my mother was pregnant with me, her OBGYN’s practice was located right here. So my first job is at the same location.”
Revisiting Tri-County Technical College made me realize you don’t have to be a traditional college student at a four-year university to be successful because I sure wasn’t a traditional student. My advice to students is to stay humble, connect with your peers and instructors, pay attention in class and you’ll be okay.”
About Tri-County Technical College
Tri-County Technical College, a public two-year community and technical college serving Anderson, Oconee and Pickens Counties in South Carolina, enrolls more than 9,000 students annually and offers more than 70 major fields of study, including computer technology, industrial electronics, mechatronics, nursing, and university transfer programs. Tri-County boasts the highest student success rate among two-year colleges in the state and ranks in the top one percent nationally for successful student transfers to four-year colleges and universities. To learn more, visit tctc.edu.
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