Director's Council of Public Representatives (COPR)

COPR Alumni

Class of 2005

• Nancye W. Buelow
  North Carolina
• Debra S. Hall
  Kentucky
• Kimberley Hinton
  Missouri
• Ted Mala
  Alaska
• Lawrence B. Sadwin
  Rhode Island
• John Shlofrock
  Illinois
• Donald E. Tykeson
  Oregon

Nancye W. Buelow
Term: 2002–2005

Ms. Nancye Buelow has been an advocate for the rights of people with genetic conditions since she was diagnosed in 1993 with alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency, known as Alpha-1, and placed on weekly plasma protein infusion therapy. Alpha-1 is a genetic disorder that may predispose affected individuals to illnesses such as lung disease, liver disease, and a skin disease called Panniculitis. Following her diagnosis, Ms. Buelow quickly became an outspoken advocate for people with Alpha-1 and other genetic disorders at the local and, later, national levels. She spends much of her free time advocating for genetic research and treatment issues so her children, grandchildren, and future generations will be spared the same concerns and challenges that she has faced. A coordinator of the Carolina A1A Support Network, Ms. Buelow is Past President of the Alpha-1 Association and an active member of the Genetic Alliance’s Executive Board. Currently, she serves as the Alliance’s Vice President for Consumers and as a representative on the Consumer Coalition for Health Privacy, the March of Dimes GENE Project, and the National Patient Safety Foundation Accountability in Clinical Research Balancing Risk and Benefit Committee. She also helped to found and build the Coalition for Genetic Fairness in Washington, DC. She frequently participates in meetings sponsored by the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, where public input is one of the primary goals. In 2000, the ECKERD and Points of Life Foundations named Ms. Buelow one of the “100 Women Volunteers Making a Difference.” In addition to her volunteer work, Ms. Buelow works as consultant for the health care home infusion industry, where she represents consumer concerns. She and her family live in the mountains of western North Carolina.

Debra S. Hall
Term: 2002–2005

Dr. Debra Hall is a Registered Nurse who works as the Clinical Nursing Researcher at the University of Kentucky Hospital. The hospital serves geographically underserved populations in which cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, and tobacco use are major health issues and includes individuals from the Appalachian culture. Prior to this position, she worked as a Critical Care Staff Development Specialist for staff who provided care to patients with neurosurgical, trauma, burn, and other medical problems. She also worked as a staff nurse with patients that had medical, general surgical, oncological, and cardiac health problems. Dr. Hall is also a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserve Nurse Corps and has served as staff nurse, division officer, and department head of training and administration for her reserve unit. She is comfortable working with many different audiences, having presented to laypersons, military personnel, unlicensed staff, nurses of various backgrounds, and multidisciplinary health care providers both locally and nationally.

As a Clinical Nursing Researcher, Dr. Hall works with nursing staff from all adult areas of the University of Kentucky Hospital to provide guidance, education, and general support in the development and conduction of nursing research activities aimed at improving patient outcomes and delivery of patient care. Her role encompasses program and process evaluation, clinical practice improvement, and research. Dr. Hall’s primary area of interest is occupational stress, including organizational interventions and work redesign for health care workers with a focus on registered nurses. Dr. Hall, who earned her doctoral degree from the University of Kentucky’s College of Nursing, has received grant funding and has completed pilot research studies on work-related stressors affecting registered nurses.

Kimberley Hinton
Term: 2002–2005

Ms. Kimberley Hinton has a long history of service to a diversity of philanthropic organizations in which she has held positions and participated in leadership capacities. These have included the United Way, the Glimmer Fund, the National AIDS Fund in Washington, DC, and most recently, the AIDS Council of Greater Kansas City. While at the United Way, in the organization’s Washington, DC, offices, Ms. Hinton worked with more than 25 different not-for-profit agencies around the DC, Maryland, and Virginia regions and managed the distribution of more than $9 million for essential community programs and services. Ms. Hinton’s work with the staff and board leadership of these organizations helped them support vital community services such as emergency food and health services, safe houses for battered women, and local and national crisis-response services. Ms. Hinton’s recent involvement includes her participation as a member of the advisory board of the Glimmer Fund, an organization based in Pennsylvania that is dedicated to supporting research on pregnancy loss. She is also a member of the Dartmouth Black Alumni Association.

Ms. Hinton is currently a full-time public health graduate student at John Hopkins University. Formerly, Ms. Hinton served as Executive Director of the AIDS Council of Greater Kansas City. She is considered an authority on grant-making and effective prevention programs, especially in the area of HIV and with programs designed to reach women and people of color. She is a trained facilitator of the Positive Workplace, a cutting-edge video training tool for workplace AIDS education. Prior to her position in Kansas City, Ms. Hinton was a Senior Program Officer for the National AIDS Fund in Washington, DC, where she managed more than $2 million in grants and provided training and development support to its 32 community partners, and she was also actively involved in planning and executing numerous national conferences.

Ted Mala
Term: 2002–2005

Dr. Ted Mala is an Alaska Native who has dedicated his career to improving health care services for Native Americans. An enrolled member of the Buckland Tribe and the Northwest Arctic Native Association in Kotzebue, Alaska, Dr. Mala currently serves as Director of Tribal Relations for the Southcentral Foundation, a nonprofit Alaska Native health corporation under the tribal authority of the Cook Inlet Region, Inc. In this capacity, he coordinates health initiatives for 53 villages served by the Alaska Native Medical Center and serves as Director of the Medical Center’s Traditional Healing Program. Dr. Mala has also served as an Associate Professor of Health Sciences at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where he founded the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies. He made history when he served as Alaska’s first Native State Commissioner of Health and Social Services, a position he held from 1990 to 1993. In this role, he directed seven divisions of government and oversaw a budget in excess of a billion dollars. Current President of the (national) Association of American Indian Physicians, Dr. Mala was most recently elected into the Russian Academy of Polar Medicine. Dr. Mala earned his M.D. from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, his M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health, and his A.B. from DePaul University in Chicago. His home village is Buckland, Alaska.

Dr. Mala is committed to the integration of Traditional Healing with allopathic medicine. He has lectured extensively on the subject and has been involved in research in the circumpolar countries Russia (Siberia), Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Finland, Canada, and the United States (Alaska) and was the first Secretary General of the International Union of Circumpolar Health. He is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Russian. He works with many tribes and on reservations throughout the United States and Canada. His hobbies include hiking, camping, traveling (especially Guatemala), and photography. He has three grown children.

Lawrence B. Sadwin
Term: 2002–2005

Mr. Larry Sadwin is a business and community leader. He is a strong advocate for health education, conducting effective community service programs to encourage personal behavior change and increasing funding for biomedical research. Mr. Sadwin’s 20-year commitment to non-profit leadership at the local, regional, and national levels is rooted in his personal victory over heart disease, coupled with an extensive family history of cardiovascular disease. He is involved with Mended Hearts, a national support group for heart disease survivors, and is currently completing his term as Chairman of the Board of the American Heart Association, the chief volunteer executive officer responsible for the overall administration of the association’s business affairs, public relations, and development. He is committed to furthering the cause of illness prevention and cure by putting a face to heart disease. This was uniquely demonstrated when Mr. Sadwin was the model for an interpretive sculpture called “A Fine Line Between Hope and Despair” by the internationally known artist Christiane Corbat, whose work explores the relationship between art, medicine, and healing. Mr. Sadwin is also a member of the National Leadership Council of Research!America, an organization dedicated to increasing funding for medical research.

Mr. Sadwin’s business career began as a senior in college, when he took over his family’s textile manufacturing business after the untimely death of his father to heart disease. He then served as the company’s CEO for the next 30 years. As a local community leader, he has assisted in the development of more than $25 million in urban renewal projects and has raised millions of dollars for local and national philanthropic and religious organizations. He serves as Vice-Chairman of both Landmark Medical Center and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island and has held numerous other positions on the boards of his synagogue, the New England Region of the Anti-Defamation League, and his local YMCA. Mr. Sadwin also holds an Honorable Discharge as a First Lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve. He and his wife, Joan, have two children and two grandsons.

John Shlofrock
Term: 2002–2005

Mr. John Shlofrock is dedicated to improving health care and quality of life for senior citizens and people with mental illness. He has worked closely with state and local governments to implement innovations in delivering care to residents of long-term health care facilities. Currently, he serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Barton Management, Inc., a Northfield, Illinois-based company that manages long-term care facilities for people with Alzheimer’s disease and mental illness, people in need of rehabilitative services, and a variety of additional health care needs. He is also Vice President of the Illinois Council on Long-Term Care, a trade association that represents 38,000 senior citizens, and has worked with the government and the private sector to create innovative programs that benefit residents of Illinois nursing homes.

Mr. Shlofrock has worked for the past 16 years with health care centers that treat people with mental illness. He currently serves as a board member for three such centers and is president of a fourth outside the Chicagoland area. In addition, Mr. Shlofrock oversees the operations of four health care facilities in downstate Illinois that provide different levels of care in a campus setting. He has also been involved in running a supportive living facility with Rush-Presbyterian Hospital, a major Chicagoland medical center. This facility is part of a pilot program that uses government funding to provide lower-income senior citizens access to assisted-living services. Mr. Shlofrock received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from George Williams College in 1986. His hobbies include exercising, listening to music, riding motorcycles and horses, and traveling.

Donald E. Tykeson
Term: 2002–2005

Mr. Don Tykeson balances business with philanthropy and advocacy. A pioneer in the communications industry, Tykeson built a small television station in Eugene, Oregon, into a multimillion-dollar, nationwide communications company that is now owned by AT&T. He is now managing partner of Tykeson Associates / Enterprises, the parent company of several communications companies in Oregon. He has also served as a founding Director of C-SPAN, a past Director of the National Cable Television Association, and President of the Oregon Cable Television Association.

Mr. Tykeson has been actively involved in and extended his support to numerous civic and charitable organizations from the beginning of his career. He serves as the founding Director and President of the Tykeson Foundation, which funds health care and medical research, education and arts initiatives, and children’s programming. A total of 59 grants and gifts were made during 2001. He also advocates on behalf of people with neurological disorders. Diagnosed in 1957 with multiple sclerosis, he serves as a national board member and Western area Vice Chair of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, where his efforts have focused on securing increased funding to find the cause and cure for neurological disorders. He has also served as a board member of the National Coalition of Research in Neurological and Communication Disorders. Mr. Tykeson has served on several committees and boards within his community, including as a trustee and Investment Committee member of the University of Oregon, his alma mater; as a trustee of the Sacred Heart Medical Center Foundation; as a member of the Investment Committee of the Oregon Health Sciences Foundation; and as Vice-Chair of the Oregon Investment Council of the Public Employees Retirement System. An avid golfer, Mr. Tykeson was an early advocate and shareholder in a company that developed the first single-rider golf cart for people with disabilities. The Tykesons have three children and six grandchildren, who range in age from preschool to college.