'For the Love of Sight’ Dinner Unites Members of Congress to Fight Blindness

More than 300 leaders from Washington, D.C.’s political and lobbying communities came together March 29 to honor two visionaries and benefit the Foundation’s mission to drive retinal research. At the 9th Annual ‘For the Love of Sight’ Visionary Awards dinner, U.S. Senator John Boozman from Arkansas and Smith W. “Smitty” Davis, partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, were honored for their accomplishments and strong Foundation support.

Smitty Davis of Akin Gump accepts his Visionary Award.

Created in 2003 by former Burson-Marsteller COO Worldwide Ken Rietz and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Ann McLaughlin Korologos, the event has raised nearly $4 million for blindness research. Andrea Mitchell from NBC News and MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” emceed the evening as Foundation Board Director Karen Petrou and Johns Hopkins Professor and Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D. presented the awards.

Co-chairing the event were Bill and Colleen Carty, Gordon and Llura Gund, Carlos and Edilia Gutierrez, Ann McLaughlin Korologos and Tom Korologos, and Ken Rietz and Ursula Landsrath.

A licensed optometrist, Senator Boozman also co-founded a family business that became a major provider of eye care in Northwest Arkansas. During his five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Senator Boozman advocated for veterans’ rights, state infrastructure and global trade. Prior to being sworn-in to the U.S. Senate in January 2011, Senator Boozman established a low vision program at the Arkansas School for the Blind and worked as a volunteer optometrist at a clinic that provides medical services to low-income families.

Senator Boozman joins Dr. Carson at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium podium.

An Akin Gump veteran who joined the firm in 1979, Davis currently co-manages Akin Gump’s Policy & Regulation Practice Group and serves on the firm’s Management Committee. It was in his capacity as a practice manager that Davis took on the Foundation as a pro bono client of the law firm, where he and his team advocate for policies that support medical research and individuals with retinal diseases. Affected with chronic retinal detachment, Davis, with the Akin Gump team, has rallied support for the Foundation’s National Eye Evaluation and Research (NEER) Network, which provides an essential link between scientific advancements in treating eye diseases. The group’s lobbying efforts also helped advance the development of the artificial retina.