2ndind.org - Second Wind Lung Transplant Association.

Mission Statement
Board Members
Second Wind Chapters
Partner Organizations

Tom Archer President

Tom earned a B. S. in Elementary and Special Education for Wright State University in Dayton Ohio in 1979 and holds certification in five specialty areas of teaching and school administration. In 1983 he completed a M. A. in Religious Studies from the University of Dayton. He completed a M. A. and specialist certification in reading at Fronton University in St. Louis in 2000. Tom worked both as a teacher and administrator for 25 years in Catholic Elementary Schools in the Archdioceses of Cincinnati and St. Louis.

Tom Archer was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in December of 1991. In October of 1999 he was evaluated by the lung transplant team at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO and was placed on the lung transplant list there.

He joined St. Louis Chapter of Second in January of 2001 and the association in February of 2001. In February of 2001 Tom responded to the invitation to serve as the Second Wind Liaison for Barnes-Jewish Hospital and continues in that role.

Tom was elected Vice President of the St. Louis Chapter in October of 2001. He worked with the other chapter officers to carry out the mission of the chapter. Tom was listed as inactive on October 29 of 2001 and remains inactive on the transplant list at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

Tom was elected President of the St. Louis Chapter on July 14, 2002 and was appointed to the Second Wind board in October of 2003. In March of 2005 Tom was elected president of the association.

Kathryn Flynn Vice-President

Kathryn Merritt Flynn received a B. A. in Biology from Earlham College in 1980 and an M. S. from University of Tennessee at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Biomedical Sciences in 1984.In the summer of 2005, she will receive an M. A. T. in Special Education with and emphasis on teaching visually impaired children. She worked on Epstein-Barr virus related cancers from 1984 until 1995 at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina.

In 1988, Kathryn began to experience severe breathing trouble after a lingering cold. She was admitted to UNC Hospitals where it was determined she had severe damage to her lungs. Doctors recommended a lung lobectomy, sort of a primitive lung reduction, to help alleviate pressure on what was presumed to be normal compressed lung tissue. The lobectomy was performed and although it did not prove to be beneficial it provided a diagnosis of Eosinophilic granuloma or Histiocytosis X. Kathryn left the hospital on 3l/min of oxygen for 24 hours a day with the recommendation to consider lung transplantation. She attended Duke Center for Living's Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program and returned to work as a Laboratory research specialist for seven more years using portable liquid oxygen. On March 25, 1996, Kathryn received a bilateral or double lung transplant at Duke University Medical Center.

Kathryn is a very active member of Second Wind contributing regularly to the Internet mailing list. She has written several stories and coordinated features for the Second Wind web page. She is a Second Wind liaison for Duke University Medical Center. She volunteers for Carolina Organ Procurement Agency to promote organ donation awareness in her community.She has also participated in the U.S. Transplant Games and has served on the committee for Team North Carolina since 1998.

Kathryn is a member of the Deaf Ministry and a religious sign language interpreter for the deaf at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in Chapel Hill. Kathryn is married to Richard Merritt and has one daughter, Sarah, born in 1992. They live in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Kathryn Flynn bilateral lung recipient 1996 Duke

Judy Ryan Secretary

Judy Ryan, an RN whose specialty has been hospice care, has been elected to the Second Wind Board of Directors. She helped start hospice with the Home Health Agency in her area and gained experience as its first Hospice Coordinator. She was instrumental in developing the patient's medical records into an easy access system and then promoted information of her program to a variety of medical professionals. In the beginning she was the only nurse on-call 24/7. One of her many successes was to see the program accepted by Medicare and Medicaid. Up until last summer she volunteered for them updating patient charts, etc but was unable to continue due to surgery. Currently, Ms. Ryan serves on the Home Health Agency Advisory Board and the Board for Caregivers, which is a non-profit agency raising funds for patients needing financial assistance for such items as medications, pay bills, build wheelchair ramps, etc.. She has been active in its primary fundraiser: The Festival of Trees held over four days in early December. Sponsers decorate one of 60 trees which are available for $200 each, and visitors enjoy continuous entertainment, a bake shop, a country store, and Santa. Schoolchildren come on a day just for them. When asked what she values as a participant on the Second Wind Board, Ms. Ryan credits her maturity and experiences in seeing things from the beginning and pushing forward, as well as her dedication to the causes in which she believes. She credits Second Wind for helping her get her life back. She is eager to help the Board in any way she can and looks forward to her participation to benefit others. The BOD is pleased to announce that Judy will be our new Secretary The Board of Directors welcome Mary and Judy and look forward to working with them.

Mary Hardy Treasurer

Mary is a 44 year old mother of two daughters ages 14 and 9. She lives in Michigan and has been married to her husband Gary for 18 years. She is an active member of the Second Wind internet mailing list and also a member of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. Mary worked in the banking industry for 16 years. While working full-time she attended night classes part time and earned a Bachelors of Accountancy Degree from Walsh College in 1991. She was blessed with excellent health until after the birth of her second child in 1996. She began experiencing odd symptoms in 1997-1998 such as double vision, numbness, extreme fatigue and migraine aura. In 1999 the respiratory symptoms surfaced and she began to feel short of breath. For over a year she continued to decline but was unable to get a definitive diagnosis. Finally in the Summer of 2000 she traveled to San Diego and was diagnosed with Pulmonary Veno Occlusive Disease which is a rare form of pulmonary hypertension. Mary was told that the disease had no cure or treatment and she should get listed for transplant immediately. She initially was listed at the University of Michigan but because their wait time was too long, she transferred her accrued time and listed herself at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic in December of 2001. After two dry runs, Mary received her life-saving bilateral lung transplant on May 31, 2002. About a year after her transplant ,she had the honor of meeting her Amish donor family and was finally able to thank them in person for giving her the gift of life. Mary visits her donor family often and feels at home in their Amish community where people live a more simple life. It has been said that there are five or six life changing events in a person’s life that will actually define who that person will be. Mary’s transplant journey was one of them.

Ruth Donahue Board Member

Ruth was born in Hayward, California in 1951. She grew up in Illinois and Indiana and currently lives in Kokomo, Indiana. She attended Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and earned a B. S. in Elementary Education. She substitute taught for a year before her family had to move out of the area. Since then she has been a snack bar manager at K-Mart and Assistant Manager at JoAnn Fabrics.

Ruth was diagnosed in October, 2000 with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. She was accepted for transplant in February, 2001 at Methodist/Clarion Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. In October of 2003 she was admitted for a bilateral lung transplant. She was released in June of 2004 and is doing much better.

Ruth is serving Second Wind as the editor of AirWays.

Milt Goldstein Board Member

Milt was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended New York University (NYU) where he earned a Boachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Arts Education. He also completed most of the course work toward a Master's Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, also at NYU.

His professional life was devoted to working with people with physical, developmental and psychiatric disabilities. For most of his working career, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of not-for-profit organizations in upstate New York that provided vocational rehabilitation and employment services to individuals with disabilities and other employment barriers. He has also acted as a Management Consultant to private and public sector agencies throughout the northeast.

Susan Koujak Board Member

I was born in Long Island, NY in 1979. Even though I endured a childhood of being constantly fatigued and short of breathe, I was not diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension until age 20. Within two years I was unable to walk and needed oxygen continuously. My health was deteriorating quickly, and PH doctor was convinced something else was going on in my lungs. He ordered another lung biopsy. The results showed another extremely rare and fatal disease called Pulmonary Capillary Hemangiomatosis. This disease has no treatment or cure, and I was immediately placed on the list of candidates to receive a double lung transplant on March 23, 2002. On May 23, 2002 , I was admitted to the hospital because my lungs were so filled with fluid I could not get any oxygen. During that night, I was told that lungs became available for me. It was so fast and sudden.

On May 24, 2002, I received my gift of life.

Since then, I have been enjoying my new freedom. I have never felt this healthy in my entire life. I have returned to work, and I am now a senior technician at a cancer research lab at Columbia University (across the street where I received my transplant a few years ago). I am also working towards an M.S. in biotechnology from Columbia University. I volunteer for the New York Organ Donor Network, speaking about the importance of organ donation and setting up informational booths. I am also the 2ndwind liaison for Columbia Presbyterian and have been a member of board for over a year.

Damian Neuberger Board Member

Born in Bellefonte and raised in State College, PA. Earned a BS and MS in Biology at Penn State, taught for two years in the University of Wisconsin Center System before going back and earning a PhD in Botany at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. While working at the UW Damian became increasingly short of breath and had a persistent cough. In May 1983, he tried to start a jogging regimen but could only go about 20 yards before gasping for breath and realizing something was seriously wrong. After seeing an internist and having a chest X-ray taken, he was referred to a pulmonologist who ran a series of tests culminating in a transbronchial biopsy (bronchoscopy) that revealed idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis; Damian was given a prognosis of 2-5 years life expectancy as lung transplants were not a viable option. He was also diagnosed with motor peripheral neuropathy of the right arm at the same time, later diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN as Parsonage-Turner Syndrome.

Damian moved his family to Glenview, IL in June of 1983 where he went to work for Baxter International as a microscopist in the Particle Science Laboratory. His disease progressed very slowly and was followed by specialists at several hospitals in Chicago, including Dr. Ralph Panos who specialized in IPF and treated with bursts of prednisone, colchicines, and Cytoxan. It was not until October 1996 that he was advised to seek evaluation for a lung transplant. Damian was listed and received a bilateral lung transplant at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, IL, a suburb of Chicago on October 19, 1997. Damian worked up until the day he was paged and returned to work 6 weeks post transplant and worked at Baxter until he retired as a senior research scientist at the end of July 2004.

In 2000, he was blessed to meet Sandy and Tony Wieber, the parents of Chad, his lung donor. He attended ChadÕs cousins wedding. Tony and Sandy, along with SandyÕs sister and her husband Charlie, attended Damian and JudyÕs 40th wedding anniversary celebration in 2004.

Damian joined Second Wind in1997, is a member of Organ Transplant Support, a speaker for the Gift of Hope, active in Glenview UMC as an usher, serves on the Spiritual Growth committee, the Vision Team, and the Pastor-Parish Relations committee. He is also very active as a volunteer with the Chicago Botanic Garden doing digital photography of living plant collections. Damian married his high school sweetheart Judy and has two children Jim (Michelle), Karen Gabriel (Tom) and three grandchildren Morgan Gabriel, and Sarah and Matthew Neuberger.

Garry Nichols Board Member

Garry received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1965 and an MBA in Finance from Syracuse University in 1969. During a 32 year career with a Fortune 50 company, he had two foreign assignments and served on the Boards of Directors of several joint-ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries. He also had been active in and served on the Boards of various educational, civic and business-related organizations.

Garry retired from his employer in 1997 and established his own consulting business in International Business Development. In 1999 he was diagnosed with end-stage COPD and began chronic oxygen therapy. In 2000, he was placed on the transplant list and he received his single-lung transplant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, UPENN Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA in May, 2003.

Just completing his three-month rehab, Garry became a member of the Board of Second Wind in October, 2003, having joined in 2002. He also has reactivated his participation in other civic organizations.

Garry and Barbara, his wife of thirty-nine years, have three adult children and five grandchildren.

(April 2005)

Michele O'Guinn Board Member

Forthcoming

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