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Dec. 28, 2012 – With fresh expertise covering a broad range of influential industries, the newest national trustees bring valuable insight and reach to the Foundation’s mission. Two of these appointees are living with a retinal disease, and each has the drive to help advance research toward treatments and cures.
Lu Ann and Jay Blackman are longtime supporters who have twice chaired the successful Baltimore Visionary Awards Dinner. Jay is executive vice president and chief operating officer of Howard County General Hospital: a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine and a former Wilmer Eye Institute administrator, and Lu Ann is an author and educator.
Mindy Caplan’s childhood diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa motivated her parents, Beverly and the late Ben Berman, to start the Foundation with other families affected with retinal disease. Now she is following her parents’ example as president of the Foundation’s Baltimore Chapter, a dinner committee member and two-time chair of the Baltimore VisionWalk.
A two-time chair of one of the Foundation’s largest VisionWalks, Steve Hamby has a knack for securing sponsorships in Chicago, and has been involved in the event’s success for four years. With two children affected with Usher syndrome, Steve, a group vice president at TransUnion LLC, has also written a fiction book called Usher Me Home.
John Mozeliak, who chaired the St. Louis Dining in the Dark this year, was also an honoree, in 2010, for his steadfast support of the Foundation and his many contributions to the St. Louis community. But he’s best-known as the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, who won the World Series in 2011.
Alan Spiro, who co-chaired the inaugural Boston Dining in the Dark in June, is a partner at the law firm Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, and was recognized as a “Massachusetts Super Lawyer” by Boston Magazine. He is also affected by retinitis pigmentosa and has supported the Foundation over the last decade.
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