Many thanks to these talented
individuals
who volunteered to work many long days
in order to bring you this webcast!
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Doug
Armstrong (darms@umich.edu)
, a volunteer firefighter, registered nurse, paramedic,
and transplantation research study coordinator is a
veteran "webcaster" from the 1998 U.S. Games in Columbus,
the 1999 Winter World Transplant Games, the First Family
Pledge, and the 1999 World Games in Budapest. Doug brings
his experience in radio and two years in Up With
People to the webcast. Doug contributed nearly all
the audio coverage of these
Games, as well as producing photography visible throughout
the webcast pages. |
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From
1995 to 1999, John Bacon (jubacon@aol.com)
wrote Sunday features for The Detroit News, and
finished second behind Mitch Albom in several in-state
writing contests. After returning from the 1998 Nagano
Olympics, he traveled the state writing profiles and
features on Michigan's favorite people and places, a
collection of which will be published next spring under
the title, Up In Michigan. After leaving the
News in 1999, he has been writing regularly for
Time, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine,
Men's Journal, and The New York Times,
and has recently finished a history of the University
of Michgan hockey team, titled A Different Team,
to be published next fall. This is John's first experience
as a webcast volunteer, and we are honored to have him
on the team. His stories are available in the Story
Showcase. |
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Ginia
Forrester (gsears@umich.edu)
is a programmer for the University of Michigan's transplant
information system. She's a newcomer to the webcast
team this year and contributes much-needed technical
expertise, photo processing skills, and enthusiasm to
the group. |
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Maureen
(mefox@umich.edu)
& Bob Fox (rtexfox@umich.edu)
are long time U.S. Games veterans. Maureen has been
a kidney and pancreas transplant coordinator at the
University of Michigan Transplant Center for more than
a dozen years and her husband Bob is a University of
Michigan director of intramural sports. Maureen and
Bob have been active for many years with Team Michigan
and with TransWeb's webcasts of U.S. and World Transplant
Games. Aside from lending us their considerable experience
and high spirits, Bob contributed photography and Maureen
was a writer for the webcast. |
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Bob
(rgarypie@umich.edu)
& Lisa Garypie (lisa.garypie@dana.com)
Bob Garypie, a longtime TransWeb board member and veteran
of all previous TransWeb webcasts, manages the TransWeb
webcast team. He is active in virtually every donation
initiative in the state of Michigan, and is a tireless
fundraiser for many donation efforts. Lisa is the manager
of public relations at Dana Commercial Credit, and serves
as the producer of the webcast. Lisa and Bob are newlyweds
who became engaged at the 1999
World Transplant Games in Budapest. |
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Jim
Gleason a heart transplant recipient, author of
A Gift from the Heart
, is an executive at Unisys.
In addition, he is an enthusiastic one-man support network
for transplant recipients, working tirelessly to help
others by connecting them with people all over the country.
Jim writes for the webcast when he's not competing in
the games himself in table tennis and badminton and
celebrating his 35 wedding anniversary with his wife
Jay and their family, all of whom travelled to the Games.
His stories are available in the Story
Showcase. |
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Mark
Gravel (mgravel@umich.edu)
is a registered nurse and director of donation services
at the University of Michigan. Mark has worked in transplantation
and donation for fifteen years, and is President of
the Michigan Coalition on Donation. This is his first
trip to the Games. Mark brought his many years of experience
with donor families and considerable knowledge of sports
to the webcast, where he wrote stories
and helped make the webcast go as smoothly as possible. |
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Gary
Green is responsible for all internet activity as
the Director of New Technologies at the National Kidney
Foundation, based in New York City. Gary was formerly
the director of the U.S. Transplant Games from 1990
- 1994 at NKF, where he has worked for 25 years. His
interest in sports led him to become the women's fencing,
women's cross country, and women's track coach at Johns
Hopkins University for fifteen years. Gary has been
a volunteer photographer for TransWeb webcasts for the
past year and a half, and is also a councillor of the
World Transplant Games Federation. Gary provided invaluable
logistical support for this webcast, without which this
coverage could never have happened! |
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Eleanor
Jones (egjones@umich.edu)
is the full time editor and webmaster for TransWeb.
She is a veteran of every webcast that TransWeb has
ever mounted and is the spiritual energy behind all
things TransWeb. When she's not busy with TransWeb,
Ellie, her husband Bruce, and their cat, Dexter, enjoy
renovating their 1920's Ann Arbor home. She was responsible
for most of the fundraising and pre-Games organization
of this webcast, assembling our largest webcast team
to date -- 17 volunteers! -- as well as serving as story
editor and part-time writer. |
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David
Katz (dlkatz@umich.edu),
a sophomore at the University of Michigan and an avid
golfer. He is also a staff photographer for the
Michigan Daily and volunteers his sports and human
interest photography skills for this webcast. David's
photography can be found throughout the webcast pages.
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Jeffrey
Marx won the Pulitzer prize in 1986 for investigative
reporting. He is co-founder and director of the Wendy
Marx Foundation for Organ Donation Awareness. His sister,
Wendy, had a successful liver transplant and is now
engaged to be married! Jeff has just published a new
book called It
Gets Dark Sometimes: My Sister's Fight to Live and Save
Lives. For this webcast, Jeff wrote about his
memories of the 1990 Games in addition to
assisting TransWeb in helping to publicize the Games.
Thank you! |
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Bob
Merion, MD (merionb@umich.edu)
is director of the TransWeb project as a whole.
Aside from his day job as a transplant surgeon, he devotes
his time to his family, world travel, photography, and
astronomy. Having been involved in fundraising and planning
for all the previous webcasts, this is Bob's first time
as a member of the front line webcast team. Bob contributed
stories, audio,
and photography to the webcast. He sums up his perspective
in the piece The Games
Through a Surgeon's Eyes: Seeing Transplantation in
a New Light. |
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Randy
Milgrom (milwrite@msn.com)
is the creator of MilWrite Communications, an Ann Arbor-based
business communications business. He is also sports
editor of the Michigan Alumnus and a frequent
contributor to the Ann Arbor Observer on public
school issues, college sports, and other topics. His
essays and other short pieces have appeared in The
Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press Magazine,
and Crain's Detroit Business, among other publications,
and his short fiction has twice won national awards
in the annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition.
His passions - aside from being with his family - are
writing, running, playing basketball, and trying to
hit golf shots. Randy is here for the first time to
contribute his considerable writing talent to the U.S.
Transplant Games webcast. His stories are available
in the Story Showcase. |
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Laurie Pajak lost her
12 year old son in 1995, and has been working as a volunteer
and now on the staff of Donor Network of Arizona. Laurie
attended the 1998 US Games as a donor family member.
She is now a volunteer donor family correspondent for
the webcast. |
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Matthew Quirk
(thinker@umich.edu)
is a graphic artist who works in the Department of Surgery
at the University of Michigan. He's in Orlando for his
first webcast and brings prodigious expertise in multimedia
production (as well as a digital camera) to the webcast
team. |
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Jason
Sprawka (sprawkjh@notes.udayton.edu)
is studying sports management and is a veteran of the
1998 US Transplant Games webcast. Jason is TransWeb's
director of public relations for the webcast, as well
as writing stories and
recording audio in
his spare time. |
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Bill
Walton is a donor family member and a recipient
family member who has volunteered as a correspondent
from Virginia. Bill also came to the 1998 Games in Columbus,
but at that time he was cheering for his son, a heart
recipient who has since passed away and donated tissues.
He attends the 2000 Games both as a donor family member
and as a recipient supporter, cheering for his wifeListen
to Bill's perspective on how we can each make a difference. |
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Matt Wielbut
(mwielbut@umich.edu),
a junior at Ann Arbor Huron High School, has been working
for TransWeb for the past year, after school and during
the summers. He created all the template pages for the
1999 World Games and 2000 US Games webcasts. An expert
web guy, Matt celebrates his 17th birthday while we're
in Orlando! |
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