Introducing Our New Chief Executive Officer

The ASAP Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Richard T. Hellner has accepted the position of Chief Executive Officer effective in early January, 2008. Dick brings to ASAP extensive experience as a non-profit executive, including twenty years of senior level experience with national and international health organizations.

Most recently he served as the international CEO of the Foundation for Allergy & Immunology Research and was previously employed as national Chief Operating Officer of the Arthritis Foundation. His nonprofit leadership also includes the Chief Executive Officer positions at Prevent Blindness America and the National Hemophilia Foundation. With strong for-profit experience as well, he made the transition to nonprofit management in 1985 in founding the United Way of Jamaica as an executive consultant with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Dick received his BA in Political Science and History from Seton Hall University. He has been an active member of the American Public Health Association, American Society of Association Executives and served as the Board Chair of the National Health Council. Moreover, with strong basic and clinical research experience, Dick served for four years as a member of the Advisory Council and Strategic Planning Committee for the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

In his new role, Dick will partner with the ASAP Board to further develop the infrastructure and financial resources necessary to increase the capacity and effectiveness of the organization to accomplish its mission: to improve the lives of persons affected by syringomyelia, Chiari malformation and related disorders while we find the cure.

A task force is being formed to develop a transition plan to quickly bring Dick up-to-speed. In this regard, he will be establishing an office in Atlanta, where he presently resides, and will soon be extending himself to meet volunteers, donors, the neurologic medical and scientific communities and ASAP's patient and caregiver community .

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Dick Hellner.