Equal Opportunity Day Dinner Speakers

 

Dr. Brian Druker, Featured Speaker:

Dr. Brian Druker is Director of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer Institute, JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research at OHSU, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Upon graduating from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in 1981, Dr. Druker completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital, Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He then trained in oncology at Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Druker then returned to the lab to begin his research career studying the regulation of the growth of cancer cells and the practical application to cancer therapies. His work was instrumental in the development of Gleevec (imatinib), a drug that targets the molecular defect in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). After completing a series of preclinical studies, Dr. Druker spearheaded the highly successful clinical trials of imatinib for CML. Imatinib is currently FDA approved for CML and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). His role in the development of imatinib and its application in the clinic have resulted in numerous awards for Dr. Druker, including the John J. Kenney Award from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the AACR-Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, the Warren Alpert Prize from Harvard Medical School, the American Society of Hematology’s Dameshek Prize, the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Pioneer of Survivorship Carpe Diem Award, the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor, the Kettering Prize from General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, the David A. Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Robert-Koch Award, the Keio Medical Science Prize from the Keio University Medical Science Fund, and most recently, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award from The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2003, the American Association of Physicians in 2006, and the National Academy of Sciences in 2007.

Dr. M. Lee Pelton, Featured Speaker:

Dr. M. Lee Pelton was appointed Willamette University's 22nd president July 1998. Under his leadership, the University has increased its academic profile, successfully employing strategies to attract the best faculty and the brightest students from the state, the nation and the world.

During President Pelton's tenure, College of Liberal Arts applications have quadrupled and the selectivity among our applications is the best the University has ever seen. This year's first-year class includes a higher academic profile - specifically the number of valedictorians and students ranked in the top 10% of their high school graduating class.

Multicultural applications increased over last year with 25% of first-year students coming from multi-cultural and international groups. Geographic diversity is strong with our students coming from 32 states and 13 countries. All this was accomplished without sacrificing the academic credentials of admitted students who boasted a 3.75 median GPA.

Sen. Ron Wyden, Invited Speaker:

Ron Wyden was first elected to Congress in 1980 to represent Oregon's 3rd District. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in a special election, becoming the first U.S. Senator to be elected in a vote-by-mail election. He was sworn in on February 5, 1996, to the seat once held by his mentor, U.S. Senator Wayne Morse. Elected to his second full term in 2004, Senator Wyden received more votes over 1.1 million than any other candidate for office in Oregon's history.

Born in 1949 in Wichita, Kansas, Senator Wyden attended the University of California at Santa Barbara on a basketball scholarship. He later earned a B.A degree with distinction from Stanford University and received a J.D. degree from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1974. Following law school, he taught gerontology and co-founded the Oregon chapter of the Gray Panthers, an advocacy group for the elderly. He also served as the director of the Oregon Legal Services for the Elderly from 1977 to 1979 and as a member of the Oregon State Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators during that same time period.

In the U.S. Senate, Senator Wyden serves on the following committees: Finance, Intelligence, Aging, Budget and Energy and Natural Resources. On the Energy Committee, he chairs the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. On the Finance Committee, Wyden chairs the Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness.

Senator Wyden's home is in Portland. He is married to Nancy Wyden, whom he wed in September 2005. He and Nancy welcomed the arrival of twins, William Peter and Ava Rose, in the fall of 2007. Senator Wyden has two children, Adam and Lilly, from a previous marriage.

Julie Burnett, Co-Chair:

Julie Burnett is President and Chief Executive Officer for Liberty Northwest, a $690 million commercial property & casualty insurer based in the Northwest. Julie is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company, including direct leadership and management of underwriting, sales, financial, actuarial, marketing and human resources operations.


Julie joined Liberty Northwest from Safeco Insurance where her tenure spanned more than 20 years. While at Safeco, she held numerous executive positions including Vice President of Safeco's Midwest Commercial Lines Division. Julie's experience in the insurance business spans across all areas of the industry, as she's held positions in Marketing, Sales, Commercial Underwriting, Commercial Product, and Field Operations. Prior to her current position, Julie served as Vice President of Offshore Operations for Safeco and established the company's first outsourcing operations in India.


Julie has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Davis and attained her CIC designation in 1991, her AIM designation in 1994, her CPCU designation in 1997, and her CRM designation in 2007.

 

Mark Ganz, Co-Chair:

Mark Ganz is President and Chief Executive Officer of Regence BlueCross BlueShield, a regional not-for-profit health and life insurance company based in Portland. Regence serves approximately three million people in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah.

Mark joined Regence in 1992, and has served the company in various roles including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer. He also served as President of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, one of the company’s major subsidiaries and the largest health-care insurer in the state.

He has participated in the region’s ever-evolving health care community his entire life, and health care has become his personal and professional cause. The son of a Spokane, Washington physician, Mark spent many childhood afternoons at his father’s family practice learning the importance of service, community and family. These values are the foundation of his efforts to transform Regence to a consumer-focused company, and the catalyst for his commitment to reduce the complexity of our country’s flawed health care system.

His passion for service excellence is the cornerstone of his marketplace vision for The Regence Group. Achieving this goal means staying true to the company’s community-based roots and making it possible for people to help each other when they need care.

Mark has successfully transferred this dedication to serving others to an extraordinary record of community service. He is a member of the board of directors of Portland General Electric Inc., U.S. Bank-Oregon Advisory Board, Oregon Business Council (also executive committee member), Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Catholic Charities, Boy Scouts of America-Cascade Pacific Council, JELD-WEN Tradition Foundation and vice-chair of University of Portland Board of Regents. He also chairs the Aspen Institute Health Stewardship Project and Greenlight Greater Portland regional economic development corporation.

Mark earned both his undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.  While an undergraduate, he was a member of the staff of U.S. Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash). 

Ken Boddie, Emcee:

Anchor and reporter Ken Boddie can be seen co-anchoring KOIN News 6's weekend newscasts and reporting during the week.

His first broadcasting job was at WHCU Radio in Ithaca, N.Y. He said that he enjoyed it so much that he decided to make broadcasting his career. As a child, Ken's ambition was to be the first person on his mother's side of the family to graduate from college. He accomplished that goal at Cornell University. One of Ken's teachers in junior high school, Andrew Ray, had a significant impact upon Ken's life. Ray taught his students that high standards lead to exceptional work. He had a reputation for not giving any of his students an "A" grade. But Ken, determined to receive that "A", worked diligently and made the grade. He's still proud of that achievement.

When Ken was about 14, he got his first job working as a stock boy at a neighborhood supermarket. He recalled getting up at the crack of dawn to work before school. He said that getting up so early taught him about the importance of discipline. Fortunately for Ken, those early morning workdays are in the past. He doesn't have to arrive at the KOIN 6 newsroom until about 9 a.m.

Off the air, Ken is a sports buff. He enjoys playing golf, but admits that he's not very good. He's also a big fan of professional basketball.

Ken also likes watching movies. Some of his favorites include "Glory," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Do the Right Thing," and "Schindler's List." Ken thinks that Bill Cosby is the greatest. He was one of the first African-Americans to star in a dramatic series and he's been a pioneer in changing a lot of attitudes, with his positive portrayals of African-Americans, Ken said.

Ken wants everyone to know that he takes the power of television quite seriously, and although celebrity and recognition are a byproduct, they are not the goal. He believes that what journalists do has a significant effect on people's lives, and every story should be written and communicated clearly, accurately and without bias.

Stephanie Elam, Emcee:

Stephanie Elam is a CNN business news correspondent. Her reports can be seen on CNN/U.S., Headline News and CNN International. She also contributes to American Morning.

Previously, Elam was the co-host of Black Enterprise Report, a nationally syndicated program focused on business, career and financial education.

Elam began her career in financial news as a copy editor for Dow Jones Newswires in New York City. Next, she joined Bridge News, an international news service, where she helped coordinate seamless, 24-hour news coverage among Bridge’s newsrooms worldwide. In 2000, she traveled to London and Mumbai, India, to help establish overnight coverage.

Soon after joining Bridge, Elam began her shift to broadcast news by covering corporate earnings for Nightly Business Report, PBS’s business news program. She also joined a select group of Bridge journalists reporting regularly on WebFN, a streaming financial news site. Eventually, WebFN hired Elam, making her the site’s only full-time reporter in New York.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks destroyed access to WebFN’s World Financial Center offices, Elam began reporting from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, covering the markets’ closely watched daily activity and interviewing the NYSE’s wide range of visitors from chief executives and politicians to music moguls and Olympians.

Elam is also the former anchor of First Business, a nationally syndicated, weekday morning financial news program and Market on the Close, a live, one-hour show on WebFN that tracked the stock market in the last hour of trading.

Elam graduated cum laude from Howard University with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

 

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