Admiral John O. Agwunobi

John O. Agwunobi was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 17, 2005 to be Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and an Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. As the ASH, Admiral Agwunobi serves as the Secretary’s primary advisor on matters involving the nation’s public health and science. He also oversees the U.S. Public Health Service and its Commissioned Corps for the Secretary. As Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Agwunobi’s responsibilities include disease prevention, health promotion, women’s and minority health, the reduction of health disparities, fight against HIV/AIDS, pandemic influenza planning and vaccine preventable disease. He is actively involved in the push for improvements in research and enhanced access to quality health care. He currently serves as the Department’s blood safety officer and the representative on the World Health Organizations executive board. Prior to becoming the ASH, Dr. Agwunobi served as Florida’s Secretary of Health, from October 2001 to September 2005. As Secretary, he confronted many public health challenges including leading the state’s public health and medical response to the unprecedented four major hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004. Dr. Agwunobi led the state’s response to the nation’s first-ever intentional anthrax attack of 2001. He subsequently guided Florida’s nationally-recognized efforts to protect the state against bioterrorism. Before moving to Florida, Dr. Agwunobi, a pediatrician, served simultaneously as vice president of a pediatric rehabilitation hospital and medical director for an affiliated managed care plan in Washington, D.C. Admiral Agwunobi sees his role as Assistant Secretary for Health as an opportunity to improve the overall health of all American’s through efforts to further the missions of the U.S. Public Health Service and its partners in the public health and medical community.

Ann M. Beauchesne

Ann M. Beauchesne heads the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Homeland Security Division, which works to achieve increased homeland security while maintaining the openness and mobility that are critical to our economy. She is the principle spokesperson on homeland security issues, and responsible for building and maintaining relationships with Administration and regulatory agency leaders. Beauchesne is also responsible for developing the organization’s overall homeland security policy strategy and fostering public-private sector partnerships to help ensure that subsequent policy is not detrimental to the private sector and economy. Prior to joining the Chamber, Beauchesne worked for the National Governors Association where she held a variety of positions, from Policy Analyst in the Natural Resources Division to Program Director of Emergency Management and Environment. She also served as NGA’s first Director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division, identifying policy priorities for Governors and their homeland security advisors. Beauchesne has written extensively on issues related to homeland security, terrorism, emergency management, natural disasters, and nuclear weapons and drafted the first ever Governors’ Guide to Homeland Security.

Georges C. Benjamin, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.E.P. (Emeritus)

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (Emeritus) is well known in the world of public health as a leader, practitioner and administrator. Benjamin has been the executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, since December 2002. He came to that post from his position as secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he played a key role developing Maryland’s bioterrorism plan. Benjamin became secretary of the Maryland health department in April 1999, following four years as its deputy secretary for public health services. Benjamin, of Gaithersburg, Md., is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine and is board certified in internal medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Benjamin started his medical career in 1981 in Tacoma, Wash., where he managed a 72,000-patient visit ambulatory care service as chief of the Acute Illness Clinic at the Madigan Army Medical Center. Later, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as chief of emergency medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After leaving the Army, he chaired the Department of Community Health and Ambulatory Care at the District of Columbia General Hospital. He then served as acting commissioner for public health for the District of Columbia and later directed one of the busiest ambulance services in the nation as interim director of the Emergency Ambulatory Bureau of the District of Columbia Fire Department. At APHA, Benjamin also serves as publisher of the nonprofit’s monthly publications, The Nation’s Health, the Association’s newspaper, and the American Journal of Public Health, the profession’s premier scientific publication. He is the author of over 80 scientific articles and book chapters. Benjamin is a member of several committees, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director’s advisory committee. He also serves on the boards of Research America, Partnership for Prevention and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

Jeffrey B. Caballero, MPH

Jeffrey Caballero is the Executive Director of the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO). Mr. Caballero has been with the AAPCHO since 1993. At AAPCHO, Mr. Caballero advocates for programs and policies that aim to increase access to quality, comprehensive community health care services that are culturally and linguistically appropriate. He has overall authority for all AAPCHO programs, finances, operations and serves as chief spokesperson for the association. He is a member of numerous national committees advocating for issues affecting Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders such as tuberculosis, hepatitis B, diabetes, and cancer. Mr. Caballero is the Vice Chair of Membership and Communications for the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans. His work experience has been in a variety of fields relating to access to care, prevention and education, and primary health care services for medically underserved populations. Mr. Caballero received his Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry/Cell Biology from the University of California, San Diego, and his Masters in Public Health from University of California, Los Angeles.

Michael Coston

Michael Coston, a 2nd generation Florida Native, and former paramedic, writes under the pseudonym of Fla_Medic. He began is EMS career at the age of 18, and earned his EMT certificate in 1973. A year later he was selected to be in Florida’s pilot D.O.T. Paramedic program, and worked on ALS units in both Arizona and Florida over the next few years. In 1979 he left the EMS field, and became a computer programmer/consultant, often producing custom medical software, including nosocomial infection tracking software for hospitals. His interest in emerging infectious diseases, originally inspired by his work during the Swine Flu scare of 1976, continues today in his blog Avian Flu Diary.

Greg Dworkin, MD

Dr. Dworkin is a founding editor of Flu Wiki and its sister site, the Flu Wiki Forum. Since its inception in June 2005, Flu Wiki has grown into an international clearinghouse of pandemic influenza information and links, presented in four languages and accessed from six continents. Flu Wiki has been cited for excellence by diverse sources such as Science magazine, Nature, and the Harvard Business Review, and linked to by local public health departments, NGOs and academic and media sources. Dr. Dworkin has lectured on the topic of Flu Wiki and the internet at the UCLA School of Public Health, and has presented at the Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Conference 2007 (jointly sponsored by the Infectious Disease Society of America and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) on Flu Wiki’s volunteer community projects, at CIDRAP’s 2007 Business Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza National Summit and at the CDC’s 2007 Leaders to Leaders Conference. Dr. Dworkin is Chief of Pediatric Pulmonology and Medical Director of the Pediatric Inpatient Unit at Danbury Hospital in Danbury CT, where he has been in clinical practice for eighteen years. He serves on the Danbury city and school Pandemic Flu Task Forces. He holds academic appointments as Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College and Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Allied Health Science at Quinnipiac College. His clinical areas of expertise include respiratory illness in the pediatric population, and the implementation of asthma education programs for the public and for health professionals. He has also served on Connecticut’s statewide asthma task force and authored articles on various aspects of pediatric asthma care. He is the Course Director for the American Heart Association’s Pediatric Advanced Life Support course administered through the Danbury Hospital Community Training Center. Dr. Dworkin received his S.B. in Life Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his medical degree from Albany Medical College. His internship, residency, chief residency and pulmonary fellowship were completed at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

David Eisner

David Eisner is Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Federal Agency that oversees America’s service and volunteering programs, including AmeriCorps, VISTA, NCCC, Senior Corps, Learn and Serve America and other domestic service and volunteering programs. Under Eisner, the Corporation has expanded the reach of its programs, reduced administrative burdens on grantees, increased its efficiency and accountability, and lowered many of its per unit program costs. In the past 18 months, in addition to its ongoing grant making and program management, the Corporation has overseen the national service response to the Gulf coast hurricanes, released studies on volunteering and civic engagement in America, transformed Martin Luther King Jr. Day into a national day of service in every state, and created the first Federal Mentoring Council, which is building greater coordination among mentoring activities of the Corporation and key federal agencies. Today, operating under the guidance of a new five-year plan, Eisner is leading the Corporation in forging powerful alliances with other agencies and private sector leaders to use service as a support platform for youth in disadvantaged circumstances, to engage more college students in service, to harness the skills of retiring Baby Boomers and, generally, to drive greater numbers of Americans to have greater impact through service and volunteering in communities. Prior to his service with the Corporation, Eisner was an executive with AOL and AOL Time Warner, where he oversaw the AOL Foundation and became a nationally recognized leader on nonprofit capacity building, infrastructure, and organizational effectiveness. He has served on the boards of several national nonprofit organizations, including Independent Sector, the National 4-H Council, and Network for Good. A graduate of Stanford University, he received his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and has four young children.

Matthew Holt

Matthew Holt has spent more than 13 years in health care as a researcher, generalist forecaster, and strategist. He’s conducted in-depth studies about many aspects of health care for public release and for private clients. His analysis and opinions about health care are published online daily in The Health Care Blog. Matthew’s research spans a wide variety of issues concerning the finance and provision of health care in the industrialized world. He is a leading authority on the use of the Internet by patients and physicians, as well as a frequent author and commentator on the health care system. An experienced strategic planner and business forecaster, he monitors developments in policy and financing, delivery systems, and medical and information technology. He helps IT vendors, payers, providers and medical technology companies create strategies to deal with their developing marketplace. Matthew is a frequent speaker at conferences, and strategic planning sessions. Before becoming an independent consultant Matthew was Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at i-Beacon, a health care IT tools and data service provider that focused on the health plan, PBM and pharmaceutical markets. Prior to that Matthew was a Vice President with Harris Interactive, the leading survey research firm, where he conducted two landmark survey research studies, Computing in the Physician’s Practice and The 10,000 Patients Study. He was also a major contributor to Harris’ Strategic Health Perspectives project, which interprets the strategic implications of system change for major health care clients. Previously, Matthew was a Director at the Institute for the Future, the Menlo Park, California think-tank. There he was responsible for the Health Information Infrastructure Outlook project, a multi-client program that helped industry leaders assess the future of information technology in health care. He was a major contributor to all IFTF health care projects and led the research areas in health care financing, health care delivery, and information technology IFTF clients included major technology companies, health plans, pharmaceutical manufacturers and provider organizations. He was also the main author of the RWJF-sponsored Ten Year Forecast of Health and Health Care in America, released in 1998. Prior to joining IFTF in 1993, Matthew spent three years with the Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center, and he has graduate degrees in Health Services Research and Political Science from Stanford. Before coming to the United States, Matthew lived in London where he worked as a broker dealing in Japanese and U.S. Treasury Bond futures.

Michael O. Leavitt

Michael O. Leavitt was sworn in as the 20th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on January 26, 2005. As secretary, he leads the Nation’s efforts to protect the health of all Americans and provide essential human services to those in need. He manages one of the largest civilian departments in the federal government, with a budget that accounts for almost one out of every four federal dollars and more than 67,000 employees. During his first year, he led efforts to successfully enroll tens of millions of seniors and disabled persons in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit; mobilized the nation’s pandemic preparedness; accelerated the development of health information standards and oversaw the medical response to Hurricane Katrina. He also presided over changes in Medicaid statutes to give states flexibility to provide targeted insurance coverage to more people, and reauthorization by Congress, after ten extensions, of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. He is intensively focused on making health care more transparent in quality and price, and reducing the time and expense of bringing safe and effective drugs to market. Prior to his current service, Leavitt served as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and three-term Governor of Utah. During his eleven years of service, Utah was recognized six times as one of America’s best managed states. He was chosen by his peers as Chairman of the National Governors Association, Western Governors Association and Republican Governors. Prior to his public service, he served as president and chief executive officer of a regional insurance firm, establishing it as one of the top insurance brokers in America. He is married to Jacalyn S. Leavitt; they are the parents of five children.

Pierre Omidyar

As founder and chairman of eBay, Pierre Omidyar changed the face of Internet commerce in 1995 when he launched eBay to experiment how equal access to information and opportunities would affect the efficiency of a marketplace. Ten years later, his experiment continues to prove the benefits of a level playing field: hundreds of thousands of members make their living entirely on eBay, more than 200 million people trust strangers with every transaction, and people find common ground where none seemed to exist before. When Pierre launched eBay as a hobby, his “day job” was conducting developer relations for General Magic. Prior to General Magic, he co-founded Ink Development Corp., which was renamed eShop and acquired by Microsoft. His career began in the software engineering business as a developer for Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, where he worked on consumer applications. Today, Pierre is co-founder and founding partner of Omidyar Network, a mission-based organization that he established in 2004 with his wife, Pam. Committed to unleashing human potential, Omidyar Network uses a broad toolset to build and sustain environments that enable individuals to improve their lives economically, socially and politically. In addition to his roles with eBay and Omidyar Network, Pierre serves as a Trustee of Tufts University and Santa Fe Institute, and a Director of Meetup Inc. Pierre graduated from Tufts University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science in computer science.

Rebecca M. Patton, MSN, RN, CNOR

Rebecca M. Patton MSN, RN, CNOR, of Lakewood, Ohio was elected to serve a two-year term as president of the American Nurses Association in June 2006. ANA is the nation’s largest professional nursing organization representing the major health policy, practice, and workplace issues of 2.9 million registered nurses (RNs) in the United States. A nurse since 1980, Patton was most recently the Director of periOperative Services for EMH Regional Healthcare System in Cleveland, Ohio. She is also a member of the Editorial Board of OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, and has written chapters for books on medical-surgical nursing and articles for nursing journals. Patton has a Bachelors of Science in nursing from Kent State University and a Masters of Nursing from Case Western Reserve University. She has held numerous ANA positions including treasurer (1998-2002), Board of Directors member (1994-1998), and delegate to the ANA House of Delegates (2003-2005).

Irwin Redlener

Irwin Redlener, M.D., is associate dean, professor of Clinical Public Health and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. The NCDP runs one of the nation’s largest programs for training public health workers in emergency preparedness. Dr. Redlener speaks and writes on national disaster preparedness policies, pandemic influenza, the threat of terrorism in the U.S., the impact and consequences of major natural disasters and related issues. Dr. Redlener is also president and co-founder of the Children’s Health Fund and has expertise in health care systems, crisis response and public policy with respect to access to health care for underserved populations. Dr. Redlener, a pediatrician, has worked in the Gulf region following hurricane Katrina where he helped establish on-going medical and public health programs. He also organized medical response teams in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 and has had disaster management leadership experience internationally and nationally. He is the author of Americans At Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared For Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now, published in August 2006 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. From 1986 to 1987, Dr. Redlener was Director of Grants and Medical Director of USA for Africa and Hands Across America. In his various professional capacities, Dr. Redlener has traveled in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Central America and has assisted relief efforts in Honduras, Guatemala, Ethiopia, and South Florida. Dr. Redlener received his MD from the University of Miami School of Medicine, and pediatric training at Babies Hospital of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, the University of Colorado Medical Center, and the University of Miami-Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He holds an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Hunter College of the City University of New York. He resides in New York and has three children and two grandchildren.

Albert Ruesga

Albert Ruesga blogs on philanthropy and nonprofits at White Courtesy Telephone. Currently a foundation executive, he has worked in the nonprofit sector for close to 20 years. He earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at MIT and taught ethics and logic at Gettysburg College before entering the world of philanthropy. An accomplished writer, his articles have appeared in Social Theory and Practice, The Journal of Popular Culture, and other publications. He was for many years a contributing writer to The Boston Book Review. Albert is currently the chair of Hispanics in Philanthropy, the largest affinity group for professionals in the foundation sector, and a board member and treasurer of The Communications Network. He serves on the boards of the Catalogue for Philanthropy — Greater Washington and the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers. He is also a member of the steering panel for Caring to Change and an advisor to the National Center for Family Philanthropy.

Sister Patricia A. Talone, RSM, PhD

Sister Patricia A. Talone, RSM, PhD, a Sister of Mercy of the Merion, PA, regional community, is vice president, mission services, for the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA). She holds a doctorate in theological ethics from Marquette University, Milwaukee and has taught at every academic level. Prior to joining CHA, she served as ethicist for the Mercy Health System, Philadelphia, and then as vice president for mission services and ethicist for Unity Health, St. Louis, a subsidiary of the Sisters of Mercy Health System, St. Louis.

Nedra Kline Weinreich

Nedra Kline Weinreich, the president and founder of Weinreich Communications, is widely recognized as an expert in the field of social marketing. She is the author of Hands-On Social Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide and a prominent blogger on social marketing issues at the Spare Change blog. She also contributes to the Marketing Profs Daily Fix blog. Since starting Weinreich Communications in 1995, Nedra has provided effective and innovative social marketing services for clients like the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Public Health Service, National Cancer Institute, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and numerous state, local and international organizations. Prior to her work with Weinreich Communications, she designed health education and communication programs for public and private organizations. Nedra is a frequent speaker at conferences and trainings, using her expertise to build the knowledge and skills of professionals who want to put social marketing to work for their organizations. She teaches a course on social marketing at UCLA’s School of Public Health and was adjunct faculty at Georgetown University. Her periodic Social Marketing University trainings attract participants from across the country and around the world. Nedra earned her Master’s degree in Health and Social Behavior from the Harvard School of Public Health. In addition to serving as an editorial consultant to the Journal of Drug Education, Nedra has served on several Federal expert advisory panels and committees. She is also involved in several organizations as a volunteer, particularly related to raising awareness about the genocide in Darfur and the problem of modern-day slavery.