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Recent News Items
Blood
Assurance CEO Announces Retirement Plans
Leonard Fant, President
and CEO of Blood Assurance, has announced that 2008 will be a transition
year for him. Fant plans to retire on December 31, 2008 making room
for current COO Richard (Rick) Youngblood to take the helm on January
1, 2009.
Fant has been associated with Blood Assurance since its inception in
1972. He, along with the Chattanooga Jaycees, the Chattanooga Hamilton
County Medical Society and a group of concerned physicians developed
a plan to assure the community and the area hospitals that blood would
be available to all those in need. Blood Assurance was born from that
plan and has since been serving the community for 35 years. In 1998
Mr. Fant was approached by the Board of Directors to come to work for
Blood Assurance as President and CEO.
Since 1998, Fant has led Blood Assurance through two building additions
to the Chattanooga, Tennessee headquarters, the development of five
additional blood centers, the addition of four new blood mobiles to
the fleet and overseeing the collection of countless pints of blood!
Although each new venture was remarkable and necessary to the operation
of Blood Assurance, Mr. Fant stated,
“Being an old lab boy from way back, I am most proud of the development
of Blood Assurance’s NAT lab. We have been processing blood on-site
for 35 years but now we are able to provide testing for HIV and AIDS
on-site instead of sending the blood samples out of town.”
Fant can be found at the blood center giving tours, hosting volunteer
groups, and cheering the donors and employees everyday. When he isn’t
in the office, you will find him chairing civic and other non-profit
events, practicing what he believes that “most people are givers”
and he doesn’t mind asking everyone to give in one way or the
other. Leonard Fant has given a lifetime of volunteer hours over his
career, and his retirement won’t be any different! _edited-1.gif)
Rick Youngblood who began his career with Blood Assurance in 1998 as
the COO, will start his role as President and CEO on January 1, 2009
with a solid organization and a building project of his own. Blood Assurance
broke ground earlier this year for a Distribution Center to house the
blood mobiles, the courier vehicles and the maintenance facilities for
the vehicles. Central supply, excluding the actual blood inventory,
will also be stored at the new facility. Plans are in place to house
the back up system for all electronic data at the location as well.
Blood Assurance serves 31 counties across Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama
and North Carolina and provides blood and blood products to 47 healthcare
facilities in the service area. Within the service area footprint, Blood
Assurance boasts 11 blood centers and 9 blood mobiles and projects 102,500
units of blood will be drawn in 2008.
Sandra
Bonds, MT(ASCP)SBB Retires
Thirty-two years of valuable experience walks out the door on December
21 when Sandra Bonds, Regional Quality Director for the Tennessee Valley
Region of the American Red Cross, retires.
Sandra held several Red Cross positions
before becoming Regional Quality Director including Reference Laboratory
Technologist; Acting Education Officer; Assistant  Director
of Technical Services; Manager, Donor Health; Compliance Officer; Quality
Assurance Officer; Laboratory Director and Director of Operations Support.
Sandra is a native of Huntingdon, Tenn. and a graduate of David Lipscomb
College in Nashville. She completed a Medical Technology internship
at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and attained MT certification
from the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP). Sandra received
further education at the University of Tennessee’s School of Clinical
Immunohematology in Memphis and received SBB certification from the
ASCP.
Before coming to the Red Cross, Sandra worked in the Blood Bank at City
of Memphis Hospitals, taught at the University of Tennessee’s
School of Medical Technology in Memphis, and served as Supervisor of
the Transfusion Service at Vanderbilt University Hospital.
Sandra is a founding member of the Tennessee Association of Blood Banks
(TABB) where she held various offices including President of the organization
from 1998-2000. In 2001, she was the recipient of the Lemuel W. Diggs
award given by TABB.
She married George Bonds in 1969. George passed away in 2001. The couple
has two children and 2 grandchildren.
Sandra Bonds will retire on December 21, 2007.
Jocelynne
McCall
ARC Nashville
In
Memoriam - Carl
A. Nelson, Jr., M.D., 1924-2007
Carl A. Nelson, Jr., M.D.
died in Palm City, Florida on June 16, 2007 following a two year battle
with cancer. He founded MEDIC Regional Blood Center in Knoxville in
1958, and  was
chairman of the MEDIC Board of Trustees from its founding until his
death. He also served as Medical Director from 1958 until 2000. He was
active in the TABB throughout his professional career serving a term
as President and was a Lemuel W. Diggs Award Recipient in 1992. Dr.
Nelson graduated from Carson-Newman College, Jefferson City, Tennessee
in 1944 and received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee
College of Medicine in 1948. He served as a physician in the U.S. Navy
at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He became
interested in blood banking while serving as an anesthesiology resident
in Birmingham, Alabama and was involved with the establishment of a
blood donor center in Birmingham. After returning to Knoxville he became
the head of the anesthesiology department of Fort Sanders Hospital,
and it was during the same time that he founded MEDIC Regional Blood
Center. During his career he was involved in several plasmapheresis
centers in Tennessee and elsewhere. Dr. Nelson was a man of great energy
and vision, and had a unique ability to turn vision into reality. He
was one of Tennessee’s true pioneers in blood banking, and contributed
greatly to the advancement of transfusion medicine in the East Tennessee
region. In his death our medical and blood banking communities have
suffered a great loss, and he will be remembered as a sincere, caring
and compassionate man and a true professional.
Lynn F. Blake, M.D.
Medical Director, MEDIC
From
the West Tennessee Regional Blood Center/LIFELINE Blood Services.
Jack Smythe, 83, of Jackson, Tennessee,
died Monday, May 26, 2003. Smythe, a member of AABB since 1947, founded
and worked as the President of the Jackson Blood Bank (now known as
the West Tennessee Regional Blood Center,Inc./LIFELINE Blood Services)
for 43 years.
In August of 1947, Jackson Medical Laboratory and Blood Bank opened
its doors. Business partners Jack Smythe and his wife, Martha, and Ruby
Warner were proud of their new venture. This local business upstart
was synonymous with the founding meeting of the American Association
of Blood Banks in Dallas, TX. Jack was at the meeting and became a founding
member of AABB. Over the years, Smythe saw his blood bank grow and expand,
moving into two new buildings before it settled in the site where it
is now located at 828 N. Parkway, Jackson, Tennessee. In honor and appreciation
for the life-saving impact of his life-long profession and service to
West Tennessee patients, the board of directors named the facility housing
the blood center “The Jack Smythe Building” at the 50th
Anniversary celebration in August, 1997.
Blood banking truly was Smythe’s passion and pride. He served
on many AABB committees, mostly as chairman. Jack also served as secretary
of the AABB Board of Directors for several years and he received the
outstanding Administrator Award (currently called the Hemphill Award).
However, there was more to his life than his profession. Family, church
and community each had their prominent place in his heart. This was
evident by his involvement in the lives of his children and grandchildren,
who remember fondly times at the river, the work of his church, Lambuth
Memorial United Methodist, the activities of civic clubs and organizations
where he served in numerous capacities with the Jackson Rotary Club,
the Rose society for rose gardeners, the Hollywood Cemetery Board and,
last but not least his influence in securing Jackson as the home of
the Miss Tennessee Scholarship Pageant. These and countless other projects
were willingly taken on by Smythe and he always enjoyed helping make
his community a better place for everyone.
Smythe is survived by his wife, Martha and two sons, Kelly, Jackie,
and a daughter, Mary Alice. Jack was preceded in death by his son, Gary.
Jack was
a founding member of the TABB and the President of TABB during the year
1976 to 1977.
Grace
Neitzer
Grace Neitzer, who died in Memphis on April
4, 2002 had a 40-year career as a blood banker, and was technical director
of the blood bank at Baptist Memorial Hospital for the last 15 years
of her professional life. Her international reputation as a leader in
establishing quality standards and procedures in the field led to her
election as president of the American Association of Blood Banks, the
world's largest organization devoted to transfusion medicine, and her
receipt of the distinguished service medal of that professional organization.
Neitzer died from chronic hepatitis C, contracted as the result of an
unrecognized laboratory accident when she was working with a blood specimen.
How ironic that this gracious woman, who dedicated her life to providing
a safe and reliable blood supply for the sick and injured of the Mid-South
and the nation, should give up her life to a disease contracted through
life-sustaining blood. Her passing reminds us of Sister Constance and
the other Martyrs of Memphis (memorialized at St. Mary's Cathedral)
who gave their lives nursing the sick in the Memphis yellow fever epidemic
of 1878.
Thomas M. Chesney, M.D.
Director of Laboratories
Baptist Memorial Hospital
Memphis
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