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Orange County Shine the Light Dinner
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Over 200 guests joined the Foundation Fighting Blindness and Gavin Herbert Eye Institute as they hosted the Orange County Shine the Light Visionary Awards Diner on Thursday, March 22, 2012 at the Fairmont Newport Beach. For the past five years, the focus had been on the darkness associated with vision loss through the Dining in the Dark theme, but this year we decided to “Shine the Light” as we highlighted cutting-edge research and progressive clinical trials that light the way to finding treatments, preventions, and cures for blinding eye diseases. The 2012 Dinner honorees, Tibor Juhasz, Ph.D., Vice President, Surgical Instrumentation, Research & Development, LenSx and Stephen J. Ryan, M.D., President, Doheny Eye Institute were honored for their outstanding contributions and commitment to the visually impaired community. We also had the pleasure of presenting a Lifetime Achievement honor to Richard Kratz, M.D., D. Sci. for his exceptional dedication to the greater Orange County community. The evening began with a welcome from Event Co-Chair, William J. Link, Ph.D., Managing Director, Versant Ventures followed by opening remarks from our second Event Co-Chair, Roger F. Steinert, M.D., Chair, Department of Ophthalmology; Director, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, who also introduced the moving GHEI video, “We See a Better Future”. Following the video, our final Event Co-Chair, Jim Mazzo, President, Abbott Medical Optics, Inc; Senior Vice President, Abbott Laboratories, introduced Orange County Chapter Member, Jane Neglia, who shared her personal and touching story with the audience. After the introduction speeches, Stephen J. Ryan, M.D. was presented with the first Visionary Awards of the evening by David Pyott, followed by the Lifetime Achievement Award presentation to Richard Kratz, M.D., D.Sci by Roger F. Steinert, M.D. During dinner the audience was entertained by blind pianist, Lex Gillete. After dinner, Foundation Fighting Blindness Chief Research Officer, Stephen Rose, Ph.D., introduced the second video, “Light the Way”, highlighting the Foundations work. Then the final Visionary award of the evening was presented to Tibor Juhasz, Ph.D. by Ron Kurtz, M.D. For more information on this or future Southern California events, contact the Foundation Fighting Blindness Western Region office at (310) 450-2910.
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