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Many thanks to these talented individuals
who volunteered to work many long days
in order to bring you this webcast!
Doug Armstrong (darms@umich.edu) , a volunteer firefighter, registered nurse, paramedic, and transplantation research study coordinator is a veteran "webcaster" from the 1998 U.S. Games in Columbus, the 1999 Winter World Transplant Games, the First Family Pledge, and the 1999 World Games in Budapest. Doug brings his experience in radio and two years in Up With People to the webcast. Doug contributed nearly all the audio coverage of these Games, as well as producing photography visible throughout the webcast pages.
From 1995 to 1999, John Bacon (jubacon@aol.com) wrote Sunday features for The Detroit News, and finished second behind Mitch Albom in several in-state writing contests. After returning from the 1998 Nagano Olympics, he traveled the state writing profiles and features on Michigan's favorite people and places, a collection of which will be published next spring under the title, Up In Michigan. After leaving the News in 1999, he has been writing regularly for Time, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine, Men's Journal, and The New York Times, and has recently finished a history of the University of Michgan hockey team, titled A Different Team, to be published next fall. This is John's first experience as a webcast volunteer, and we are honored to have him on the team. His stories are available in the Story Showcase.
Ginia Forrester (gsears@umich.edu) is a programmer for the University of Michigan's transplant information system. She's a newcomer to the webcast team this year and contributes much-needed technical expertise, photo processing skills, and enthusiasm to the group.
Maureen (mefox@umich.edu) & Bob Fox (rtexfox@umich.edu) are long time U.S. Games veterans. Maureen has been a kidney and pancreas transplant coordinator at the University of Michigan Transplant Center for more than a dozen years and her husband Bob is a University of Michigan director of intramural sports. Maureen and Bob have been active for many years with Team Michigan and with TransWeb's webcasts of U.S. and World Transplant Games. Aside from lending us their considerable experience and high spirits, Bob contributed photography and Maureen was a writer for the webcast.
Bob (rgarypie@umich.edu) & Lisa Garypie (lisa.garypie@dana.com) Bob Garypie, a longtime TransWeb board member and veteran of all previous TransWeb webcasts, manages the TransWeb webcast team. He is active in virtually every donation initiative in the state of Michigan, and is a tireless fundraiser for many donation efforts. Lisa is the manager of public relations at Dana Commercial Credit, and serves as the producer of the webcast. Lisa and Bob are newlyweds who became engaged at the 1999 World Transplant Games in Budapest.
Jim Gleason a heart transplant recipient, author of A Gift from the Heart , is an executive at Unisys. In addition, he is an enthusiastic one-man support network for transplant recipients, working tirelessly to help others by connecting them with people all over the country. Jim writes for the webcast when he's not competing in the games himself in table tennis and badminton and celebrating his 35 wedding anniversary with his wife Jay and their family, all of whom travelled to the Games. His stories are available in the Story Showcase.
Mark Gravel (mgravel@umich.edu) is a registered nurse and director of donation services at the University of Michigan. Mark has worked in transplantation and donation for fifteen years, and is President of the Michigan Coalition on Donation. This is his first trip to the Games. Mark brought his many years of experience with donor families and considerable knowledge of sports to the webcast, where he wrote stories and helped make the webcast go as smoothly as possible.
Gary Green is responsible for all internet activity as the Director of New Technologies at the National Kidney Foundation, based in New York City. Gary was formerly the director of the U.S. Transplant Games from 1990 - 1994 at NKF, where he has worked for 25 years. His interest in sports led him to become the women's fencing, women's cross country, and women's track coach at Johns Hopkins University for fifteen years. Gary has been a volunteer photographer for TransWeb webcasts for the past year and a half, and is also a councillor of the World Transplant Games Federation. Gary provided invaluable logistical support for this webcast, without which this coverage could never have happened!
Eleanor Jones (egjones@umich.edu) is the full time editor and webmaster for TransWeb. She is a veteran of every webcast that TransWeb has ever mounted and is the spiritual energy behind all things TransWeb. When she's not busy with TransWeb, Ellie, her husband Bruce, and their cat, Dexter, enjoy renovating their 1920's Ann Arbor home. She was responsible for most of the fundraising and pre-Games organization of this webcast, assembling our largest webcast team to date -- 17 volunteers! -- as well as serving as story editor and part-time writer.
David Katz (dlkatz@umich.edu), a sophomore at the University of Michigan and an avid golfer. He is also a staff photographer for the Michigan Daily and volunteers his sports and human interest photography skills for this webcast. David's photography can be found throughout the webcast pages.
John Landers is the manager of Team Arizona, as well as being a transplant recipient and is a member of a donor family. He has written a book about his experiences as a heart transplant recipient entitled "Dying for Life: The Journey to Transplant". He has been active in many previous U.S. Transplant Games and will be writing for the webcast. Read about his unique perspective on the Games.
Joel Lerner ( jlerner@corecomm.net) is a staff photographer for Pioneer Press, a freelancer for the Chicago Sun-Times, and owner-operator of sportpics.com. Two years ago, Joel donated a kidney to his father, Howard, who will be Joel's photography assistant during the webcast. Their story is told in the photoessay "For Dad: Reflections and Photos of a Kidney Transplant." Howard, a two-time kidney recipient, writes about his perspective in What is Love?
Jeffrey Marx won the Pulitzer prize in 1986 for investigative reporting. He is co-founder and director of the Wendy Marx Foundation for Organ Donation Awareness. His sister, Wendy, had a successful liver transplant and is now engaged to be married! Jeff has just published a new book called It Gets Dark Sometimes: My Sister's Fight to Live and Save Lives. For this webcast, Jeff wrote about his memories of the 1990 Games  in addition to assisting TransWeb in helping to publicize the Games. Thank you!
Bob Merion, MD (merionb@umich.edu) is director of the TransWeb project as a whole. Aside from his day job as a transplant surgeon, he devotes his time to his family, world travel, photography, and astronomy. Having been involved in fundraising and planning for all the previous webcasts, this is Bob's first time as a member of the front line webcast team. Bob contributed stories, audio, and photography to the webcast. He sums up his perspective in the piece The Games Through a Surgeon's Eyes: Seeing Transplantation in a New Light.
Randy Milgrom (milwrite@msn.com) is the creator of MilWrite Communications, an Ann Arbor-based business communications business. He is also sports editor of the Michigan Alumnus and a frequent contributor to the Ann Arbor Observer on public school issues, college sports, and other topics. His essays and other short pieces have appeared in The Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press Magazine, and Crain's Detroit Business, among other publications, and his short fiction has twice won national awards in the annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition. His passions - aside from being with his family - are writing, running, playing basketball, and trying to hit golf shots. Randy is here for the first time to contribute his considerable writing talent to the U.S. Transplant Games webcast. His stories are available in the Story Showcase.
Laurie Pajak lost her 12 year old son in 1995, and has been working as a volunteer and now on the staff of Donor Network of Arizona. Laurie attended the 1998 US Games as a donor family member. She is now a volunteer donor family correspondent for the webcast.  
Matthew Quirk (thinker@umich.edu) is a graphic artist who works in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan. He's in Orlando for his first webcast and brings prodigious expertise in multimedia production (as well as a digital camera) to the webcast team.
Jason Sprawka (sprawkjh@notes.udayton.edu) is studying sports management and is a veteran of the 1998 US Transplant Games webcast. Jason is TransWeb's director of public relations for the webcast, as well as writing stories  and recording audio in his spare time.
  Bill Walton is a donor family member and a recipient family member who has volunteered as a correspondent from Virginia. Bill also came to the 1998 Games in Columbus, but at that time he was cheering for his son, a heart recipient who has since passed away and donated tissues. He attends the 2000 Games both as a donor family member and as a recipient supporter, cheering for his wifeListen to Bill's perspective on how we can each make a difference.
Matt Wielbut (mwielbut@umich.edu), a junior at Ann Arbor Huron High School, has been working for TransWeb for the past year, after school and during the summers. He created all the template pages for the 1999 World Games and 2000 US Games webcasts. An expert web guy, Matt celebrates his 17th birthday while we're in Orlando!

 
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