Brain Injury Association of New Jersey’s Annual Meeting
The Brain Injury Association of New Jersey held its 2009 annual meeting on Wednesday, September 23, 2009. The tenure of the meeting was upbeat as a result of the outstanding leadership provided by outgoing President John Tiene over the past two years as well as the outstanding work of President and CEO Barbara Geiger-Parker and her staff.
As is customary each year, there were award presentations. This year, Lorraine Adawai and Nancy Sommerville were the recipients of the Founder’s Award for Volunteer Service. They received this award for their exemplary work on expanding the Walk for Thought/Cycle for Safety event to the northern part of New Jersey.
This year’s recipient of the James and Sarah Brady Award for Public Service was Pamela Fischer, Director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety as a result of her ongoing commitment to raise awareness about traffic safety and injury prevention. More particularly, Ms. Fischer has dedicated her career to working to reduce teen crashes, injuries and fatalities.
The highlight of the award presentations was the awarding of the Silvio O. Conte Award for Public Awareness and Education which went to Gary Conger and three of his friends, Will Darche, Diego Ortiz and Jaraun Wright who bicycled across the United States to raise awareness of brain injury. Gary Conger, receiving the award on behalf of his group, gave an inspirational talk that brain injury doesn’t end on the day of the injury. Gary had sustained a severe brain injury when a senior in high school, approximately five years ago. Through his hard work and the help of medical professionals, Gary is now in his last year at the Morris County Community College.
Also receiving awards was John K. Tiene who received the Past-Chairperson Award, Jill Schulman, Senior Director of Development for BIA-NJ for twenty outstanding years of service to the organization and Judi Weinberger, Director of Family Support and Vocational Projects who received her ten year service award.
The second highlight of the evening was the presentation of the video “Traumatic Brain Injury The Silent Epidemic” which was presented by David Grubb, incoming Vice Chairman of BIA-NJ. This outstanding video which will be circulated to schools and organizations throughout the state of New Jersey provides an excellent learning tool for people to understand traumatic brain injury.
Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of this video should contact the BIA-NJ.
It was a wonderful evening.