Speaker Profiles

2012 Speaker: Dr. Susan Love

Susan M Love, MD, MBA has dedicated her professional life to the eradication of breast cancer.  As President of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, she oversees an active research program centered on breast cancer cause and prevention. She is also a Clinical Professor of Surgery at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.          

Her reputation as an activist comes from her role as one of the “founding mothers” of the breast cancer advocacy movement in the early 1990’s by being one of the founders of the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC). She continues this work by serving on the boards of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and Young Survival Coalition.  She served on the National Cancer Advisory Board from 1998-2004 as an appointment of President Clinton.

Dr. Susan Love is best known as a trusted guide to women worldwide through her books and the Foundation website. The completely revised fifth edition of Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book termed “the bible for women with breast cancer” by The New York Times; was released October 2010.  It has been translated into German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and Hebrew. Dr. Susan Love’s Menopause and Hormone Book, first published in 1998 and revised in 2003, was one of the first to sound the alarm against the long term use of postmenopausal hormones and Live a Little (Crown 2009) encourages women to be healthy without driving yourself crazy.

A true visionary, Susan Love’s most recent project, the Love/Avon Army of Women, is a creative Internet solution to partner women and scientists in order to accelerate basic translational research.  Thanks to a generous grant from the Avon Foundation for Women, the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation launched the Army of Women campaign in October 2008.  The campaign is recruiting one million women who are willing to consider participating in research to find the cause and prevention of breast cancer. This novel initiative will move research from animals to women, democratizing the scientific process.

Dr. Love received her medical degree from SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York, did her surgical training at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital.  She founded the Faulkner Breast Center in Boston and the Revlon UCLA Breast Center in Los Angeles. She has a business degree from the Executive MBA program at UCLA’s Anderson School. In 1996 she retired from the active practice of surgery, to dedicate her time to the urgent pursuit of finding the cause and prevention of breast cancer.  The Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, a 501 (c ) 3 non-profit breast cancer foundation has over $4 million dollars in peer reviewed grants and is pioneering novel techniques to identify young women at risk for breast cancer as well as local therapy directly into the milk ducts to prevent breast cancer.

2011 Speaker: Michael H Samuelson

For the past 35 years, Michael Samuelson – entrepreneur, senior executive in health insurance, CEO, university professor, and US health policy advisor – has lectured on leadership, health promotion, patient experience, health policy, disease prevention, and the dynamics of behavior change. The author of five books and numerous articles on leadership and behavior change, his work has been featured on the ABC News program 20/20, The CBS Morning Show, CNN, and MSNBC, as well as numerous national print publications including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Lancet, BusinessWeek, and USA Today.

Samuelson, a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Master’s degree in education, is a Vietnam-era veteran of the US Air Force (1967 - 1971) and a recipient of the Commander’s Coin of Excellence from the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.

His writings, audio work, and behavior change programs have been distributed to millions throughout the world and have been publicly endorsed by scientists, politicians, advocacy organizations, business leaders, and media personalities, including George H.W. Bush, Betty Ford, C. Everett Koop, Ken Blanchard, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and Larry King. 

2009 Speaker: John Hall

John Hall is a 63 year old Emergency Medicine Physician who has practice Emergency Medicine in Anchorage for 31 years.  He is the second of 10 children of a military family and thus lived around the world while growing up. He graduated from UCLA Medical School in 1975 and after completing the UC Davis Family Residence Program he joined the US Public Health Service and was stationed at the Alaska Native Medical Center from 1978 until 1982 when he joined the Emergency Medicine Department at Providence where he continues to work today. He has served as Alaska State EMS Medical Director, as a member and chairman of the Anchorage Medical Advisory Board, as Director of the Emergence Medicine Department at Providence and as the Providence Hospital Chief of Staff.

In 1969 John married Jane Wisser. They have four children, two girls and two boys, who pursue their own careers in Anchorage, Austin, Texas and Capetown South Africa.  In 2004  John rode, with Jane’s support,  2,300 miles from Vancouver BC to Anchorage in twenty-three days raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network. In 2007 Jane was diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2008 they decided to cycle the perimeter of the lower forty-eight. In support of and with the support of his wife, John rode a total of 12,015 miles in 120 days.  Together they strived to raise public awareness and they raised more than $130,000 for the Susan Butcher Family Center at the Providence Alaska Cancer Center and for the  Lance Armstrong Foundation.

2008 Speaker: Becky Olson

In 1996, at age 43, Becky went back to school while working a full-time job, to get her college degree.  Three months later she was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer.  She was given a 60% chance to survive past five years.  She always jokes that she is thankful her doctors were wrong because it took her SEVEN years to graduate.   She graduated in 2003 at age 50.

In 2004 Becky published her first book “The Hat that Saved My Life.”    Five days after sending her manuscript to her publisher to begin the edits, she was diagnosed… AGAIN!  And once again, it was stage 3.

Becky is president and co-founder of Breast Friends®, founded in August 2000 with the help of Sharon Henifin.  Breast Friends® is the friends and family network for support and inspiration and has received funding from Susan G.  Komen For the Cure, for the past four years.

2007 Speaker: Francene Mason, MD

Francene Mason, MD is a medical oncologist and cancer survivorship specialist at Pinnacle Health Care in Boulder, Co. A biology graduate of Swathmore, she completed her medical training at the University of Pittsburgh. She is board certified in both internal medicine and oncology. She has served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Dr. Mason's focus is on exercise and nutrition in the prevention and treatment of cancer. She is the author of numerous papers and lectures on breast cancer and survivorship.

2006 Speaker: Julie Gralow, MD

Julie Gralow, MD is an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology and the Director of the Breast Cancer Research Institute at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She majored in biologic sciences at Stanford University before attending medical school at the University of Southern California. She did a residency in internal medicine at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Specializing in breast cancer, Dr. Gralow is the co-Chair of the Southwest Oncology Group’s Breast Cancer Committee. She is the principle investigator on several national clinical trials related to breast cancer treatment.

2005 Speaker: Christine Clifford

All of us have read or heard stories about people who turn "lemons into lemonade." It is not often that we get the privilege of meeting such an individual. Christine Clifford, CSP has definitely cracked the "glass ceiling." At the age of 40, she was Senior Vice President for SPAR Marketing Services, an international information and merchandising services firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Christine is the President/CEO of The Cancer Club, a company designed to market humorous and helpful products internationally for people with cancer and for their loved ones. Recently, her company was called "the most exciting new business venture to come along in many a decade."

2004 Speaker: Jennie Nash

Ms. Nash's book, The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming and Other Lessons I Learned from Breast Cancer is a story of how the illness made her "a wise old woman at the age of 36." The book was a Lifetime TV Bookshelf Pick for October, 2001. Ms. Nash was featured on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Berman and Berman: For Women Only, and on National Public Radio.

She also appeared in an ABC special produced for the Los Angeles Revlon Run/Walk, and has given keynote addresses all over the country. She has twice taught month-long classes on breast cancer and storytelling for WebMD University.