FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 19, 2006
Collaborative 2006 Award Dinner Recognizes Local Volunteer Leaders
Cincinnati - The Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati announces its 2006 award winners who will be recognized for their superior gifts of time, effort and endless dedication to the organization at its fourth annual award dinner on Thursday, November 2 at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati downtown.
The Volunteer Leadership Award is given to individuals who have donated significant time and energy to furthering the Collaborative mission. The 2006 recipients of this award are:
- Bradley S. Jackson, M.D., a Loveland, Ohio resident who is president of the Cincinnati Medical Association and a partner at Premier Pediatric Group in Mason
- John C. Peters, PhD, a West Chester, Ohio resident who is head of the Nutrition Science Institute within the Food and Beverage Technology Division at Procter & Gamble, and CEO of the America On the Move Foundation
- Trisha Rayner, a Union, Kentucky resident who director of Program Development at the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati
The Friend of the Collaborative Award is given to individuals or organizations that have steadfastly supported the Collaborative. This year’s recipient is the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The award will be accepted by Dr. David Stern, dean of the College of Medicine.
The Collaborative Leadership Award is the Collaborative’s highest honor and it is not given every year. When given, it is presented to an individual who has provided extraordinary leadership, embraced the collaborative process and promoted the Collaborative as a model for other organizations. The 2006 Collaborative Leadership Award will be presented to Lynn R. Olman (who resides in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio), who helped to establish the organization in 1992 and until August 2006 volunteered her time as the Collaborative’s executive director. In her 23 years as president of the Greater Cincinnati Health Council, Olman devoted herself to improving processes and policies that would enhance the “big picture” of community health. Her contributions to the Collaborative, including bringing competitors together as collaborators to work in the community’s interest, have helped to improve community health status in the Tristate.
Additionally, the Collaborative’s chair of the Board of Trustees since 1992, L. Thomas Wilburn, Jr. will receive special recognition as Chair Emeritus. Wilburn, a Blue Ash, Ohio resident and director of Bethesda Services for TriHealth, has been an instrumental force in the Collaborative’s strategic planning process throughout the organization’s history. He will retire as board chair at the end of this year.
The awards will be presented in front of more than 400 of the Tristate’s community leaders: health professionals, community service agency executives, hospital trustees, business representatives, public health officials, educators and citizens who have an interest in community health. This year’s featured speaker will be Tony-award winning Broadway performer Ben Vereen. Throughout his life, Vereen has been active in a wealth of humanitarian and health-related causes. He was awarded the prestigious Victory Award in 1990, the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award in 1983, and Israel’s Humanitarian Award in 1978. And, for two consecutive years – 1978 and 1979 – the NAACP handed Vereen its prestigious Image Award. Vereen has served as chairman of several renowned organizations, including the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Association.
Proceeds from the dinner benefit the community health improvement initiatives sponsored by the Collaborative. These projects include diabetes screening and education; neighborhood-based efforts to reduce low birth weight; American On the Move in Ohio Healthy Weight initiative; and the Cincinnati MD Resource Center and its related website, CincinnatiMDjobs.com.
Presenting Sponsor: TriHealth
Platinum Sponsors:
Procter & Gamble Global Beauty, Personal Health Care and Oral Care
Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals
Gold Sponsors:
Catholic Healthcare Partners
GE- Aviation
Queen City General and Vascular Surgery Group
For more information regarding reservations or corporate sponsorships, contact Development Director Linda Wilfong at 513-531-0267. Or, visit the Collaborative’s Web site at www.the-collaborative.org.
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Speaker History
The 2006 Award Dinner marks the fourth year for this event. Past speakers include actor and activist Christopher Reeve in 2003, who spoke on the theme “Nothing is Impossible” and addressed the importance of working together to improve community health; actress Patty Duke in 2004, who spoke
about her life experiences with mental illness and the importance of removing the social stigma attached to depression and other mental illnesses; and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in 2005, who spoke about the crucial need to stem this country’s obesity epidemic.
About the Collaborative
The Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati is an incubator for innovation to create a healthier community. The Collaborative’s unique process defines us and distinguishes us. We bring diverse community stakeholders together in a neutral forum, enabling even competitors to become collaborators in creating sustainable health improvement initiatives.
We design our projects to address identified community needs and to be operated ultimately by community sponsors. This cyclical process enables the Collaborative to leverage our distinctive ability to generate solutions while engaging an ever-widening circle of community stakeholders in health improvement.
The Collaborative:
- Identifies critical health improvement opportunities
- Aligns diverse community stakeholders in a neutral forum around focused health needs
- Nurtures and supports self-sustaining initiatives to improve health
- Transfers established initiatives to community ownership
For more information about the Collaborative, call (513) 531-0267, or visit our Web site at www.the-collaborative.org.