The management team of the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) provides the vision, expertise and experience necessary to successfully operate the NMDP and guide us into the future.
On this page:
Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D., Chief Executive Officer
Michael Boo, J.D., Chief Strategy Officer
Dennis L. Confer, Chief Medical Officer
Karen Dodson, B.S. CHTC, Senior Vice President
Christine Fleming, President, Be The Match Foundation
Barry Huff, Senior Vice President
Michael Jones, MBA, Chief Information Officer
Brian L. Lindberg, J.D., Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Carol A. McCormick, Senior Vice President
Chief Executive Officer
Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D.
Chief Executive Officer, National Marrow Donor Program
Executive Director, CIBMTR (Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research)
Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D., became the National Marrow Donor Program’s Chief Executive Officer in 2000.
He has led the NMDP through transformational growth. The Be The Match Registry® has more than doubled to 9 million and the number of transplants facilitated has tripled to more than 5,200 annually. During his tenure, the emerging use of umbilical cord blood for transplant has established the NMDP as the global leader in facilitating cord blood transplants.
Chell also serves as Executive Director of CIBMTR®, the leading research program in the field, established in 2004. CIBMTR is a joint effort between the NMDP and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Prior to joining the NMDP, he served as president, Allina Medical Clinics; private-practice physician of internal medicine in Minneapolis; and before that served in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps.
He is currently the Vice-Chair on the board of directors of the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Minnesota, the nation’s largest wish-granting organization.
Chell received his M.D. from the University of Minnesota. National Marrow Donor Program (2000 - present)
Chief Strategy Officer
Michael Boo, J.D.
Michael J. Boo is the NMDP’s Chief Strategy Officer. He joined the organization in 2001.
His contributions have included the redesign and implementation of a new strategic planning process that has helped guide the doubling of growth at NMDP over the last four years, guided the creation of the Center for Cord Blood in 2003, and expanded NMDP growth in cord blood in the United States from 15 percent of the market to 75 percent. Boo has identified and developed new products and services that have had significant bottom-line revenue impact, developed new relationships within the extensive NMDP network of national and international partners that have added new registries to the NMDP, and expanded cord blood access by over 300 percent. He has provided leadership and oversight for legislative activities, continues to work with network partners, established a new federal funding program for cord blood inventory growth, which has provided more than $45 million to date, and pursued other strategies to continue and expand government funding sources.
Prior to joining the NMDP, he served as Vice President of Strategic and Corporate Development, Allina Health System; Associate General Counsel, Health Central, Inc.; and General Counsel, American Redevelopers, Inc.
Boo received his Juris Doctor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Bachelor of Arts, Urban Studies, at the University of Minnesota Duluth.Strategic Development Officer, National Marrow Donor Program (2001-present)
Chief Medical Officer
Dennis L. Confer, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer, National Marrow Donor Program
Associate Scientific Director, CIBMTR
Dennis L. Confer, M.D. is the chief medical officer of the National Marrow Donor Program. He also holds appointments as associate scientific director of the CIBMTR and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. He is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology. For more than 25 years, he has worked in blood and marrow transplantation, immunobiology and clinical research. Confer became the NMDP’s Chief Medical Officer in 1999.
As CMO, Confer oversees several NMDP departments and the CIBMTR Minneapolis office. His experience as a practicing transplant physician includes 15 years at the University of Minnesota and 10 years as Director of Bone Marrow Transplantation with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is the co-principal investigator for the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network data coordinating center. He has led the NMDP Phase II study of PBSC transplants and is experienced with FDA regulatory matters. He has been the author or co-author of six book chapters and more than 60 publications.
Confer published the NMDP’s evidence-based donor-patient matching guidelines (2008, 2003) and supported development of a new donor-patient matching algorithm, HapLogicSM (2006), to rapidly identify matched donors. He also established the research agenda of the CIBMTR (2004) and the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (2003), to advance the science of transplant, improve patients’ lives and share research results with the medical community.
He serves as Principal Investigator for development of A Growable Network Information System® (AGNIS®, 2006) to improve standardized clinical data exchange worldwide, and serves as World Marrow Donor Association Vice President, North and South America.
Confer received his M.D. in 1977 from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, where he also served as a resident from 1977-1979 and Chief Resident from 1979-1980. He served a fellowship in hematology/oncology from the University of Minnesota Medical School from 1980-1983. He became Interim Medical Director of NMDP in 1991, and served as Medical Director from 1993-1999, while serving as Associate Professor and Director of Bone Marrow Transplantation at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
Senior Vice President, Operations
Karen Dodson, B.S. CHTC
Karen Dodson, B.S., CHTC, joined the National Marrow Donor Program in 1991 as a search coordinator. In 1998 she was promoted to special projects manager, and from 2004–2010 served as director, then vice president, of NMDP’s Search and Transplant Department.
Prior to joining NMDP, Dodson worked in the field of unrelated transplantation as a junior scientist at the University of Minnesota, where she worked on research into graft-versus-host disease.
She was promoted to the position of Senior Vice President of Operations in July 2010. In this capacity, she oversees the daily operations and strategic development of scientific services, repository services, case management, adult donor management and cord blood operations. Dodson also serves on multiple Information Technology steering committees and is an executive sponsor of the NMDP business transformation project: the Phoenix Initiative.
Dodson received her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology from the University of California, Riverside, and has a graduate studies background in cellular and molecular biology. She is currently working on a Master’s in Leadership degree.
President, Be The Match Foundation®
Christine Fleming
Christine Fleming is President of the Be The Match Foundation, fundraising partner of the National Marrow Donor Program. She joined the organization in 2008.
She is responsible for extending the reach of the foundation to support critical areas of financial need, including research, financial assistance for patients, and adding new members to Be The Match Registry. She has expanded the national presence of the foundation, headquartered in Minneapolis, with offices in Charlotte and Atlanta, and reached out to work with Be The Match donor centers and recruiters across the country.
Fleming’s experience prior to joining Be The Match Foundation, includes nearly 20 years of political, academic and fundraising experience as:
vice president of TGen Foundation, Scottsdale, Ariz., where she raised funds for the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research institute; assistant dean of development of The University of Texas at Austin (UT) College of Natural Sciences; and Director, UT Business School Foundation.
Fleming received her Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin. President, Be The Match Foundation® (formerly The Marrow Foundation®), fundraising partner of the National Marrow Donor Program (2008 - present)
Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications and Recruitment
Barry Huff
Barry Huff is Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications and Recruitment and has been with the National Marrow Donor Program since 2008.
He is responsible for developing and implementing strategic marketing initiatives that will result in comprehensive planning within the organization and effective communications to internal staff and external partners, as well as the recruitment of diverse populations to the Be The Match Registry.
Prior to joining NMDP, Huff served in a number of leadership roles in sales and marketing in the consumer foods industry and marketing consulting, where he gained experiences in new product development, brand and product marketing, strategic planning and alliance building, communications and sales force management.
He has an impressive background of non-profit involvement at the Board of Directors and Advisory Committee level. His experience in this area demonstrates his passion for community service, particularly with organizations focusing on a multicultural audience.
Huff received an MBA in Marketing from the University of Iowa, an MA in Speech & Theater at the University of Michigan, and a BA in Theater at Grinnell College (Iowa).
Chief Information Officer
Michael Jones, MBA
Michael Jones joined the National Marrow Donor Program in April 2007 as the Chief Information Officer. Jones leads the Information Technology (IT) department, which is responsible for all the systems that support NMDP’s unique and ever-expanding business and technology needs. He guides and oversees the multi-functional teams across Infrastructure, Application Development, Web Development, Enterprise Architecture, and the Project Management Office.
Under Jones’ leadership, the IT department has improved delivery of key initiatives, resolved legacy issues and deployed the foundational elements of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to support efficient, optimal systems for business operations.
He was instrumental in the development and launch of the Phoenix Initiative, the NMDP’s business transformation initiative, designed to better serve NMDP’s patients, donors and the Network. He currently serves as Executive Sponsor and member of the Phoenix Initiative Executive Steering Committee. Jones also plays a key role in developing business partnerships with international registries.
Prior to joining the NMDP, he served as Vice President & Chief Technology Officer with Express Scripts. Prior to Express Scripts, he was CIO for Cigna Behavioral Health (CBH). Jones also worked for Deloitte Consulting for several years prior to joining CBH.
Jones received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from Iowa State University and his MBA from the University of Texas’ McCombs Graduate School of Business.Chief Information Officer, National Marrow Donor Program (2007-present)
Brian L. Lindberg, J.D.
Brian L. Lindberg joined the National Marrow Donor Program in 2005 as the Director of Contracts and Purchasing, became Vice President of Legal, Risk, and Network Affairs in 2007, and was named Senior Vice President and General Counsel in 2010.
Since joining the NMDP, he established the NMDP’s in-house legal department and has implemented the NMDP’s formal enterprise-wide risk management function. In addition to oversight of the NMDP’s Legal Affairs and Risk Management areas, Lindberg is also responsible for NMDP’s Contracts and Purchasing department and Network Membership Services.
Lindberg also serves as NMDP’s Compliance Officer, as well as its Institutional Official. As Compliance Officer, he is responsible for NMDP’s compliance with the full scope of legal, regulatory, and ethical requirements faced by the organization in its efforts to accomplish its mission. As NMDP’s Institutional Official, Lindberg ensures that the NMDP’s Human Research Protection Program functions effectively and that it complies with all requirements applicable to research involving human subjects.
Prior to joining the NMDP, he served as Assistant General Counsel (Clinical Advisory Counsel) for Allina Hospitals & Clinics. Prior to that, he was an attorney with Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP, during which time he served as outside legal counsel to NMDP.
Lindberg received his B.A. in Political Science and American Racial and Multicultural Studies from St. Olaf College, and his J.D. from Hamline University School of Law.
Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Education and Training
Carol A. McCormick
Carol McCormick joined the NMDP in February, 2010. She is responsible for building organizational capability for the NMDP through the development and implementation of human resource strategies, as well as education and training programs for employees and NMDP network partners.
Previously, McCormick served as Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Medtronic, Inc., a world leader in the development and manufacture of medical devices. During her 22 year tenure at Medtronic, she held HR leadership positions in the Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management and Neurological and Diabetes business sectors, including an expatriate assignment to Stockholm, Sweden. Before joining Medtronic, she held a variety of positions in for-profit and non-profit organizations. She also has an executive coaching practice, and previously represented Results Coaching Systems as a Workplace Coaching Associate.
McCormick earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and is a graduate of the Advanced Human Resource Executive Program at the University of Michigan. Her coaching credentials were obtained through Results Coaching Systems, and she is certified as a Senior Professional of Human Resources by the Society for Human Resource Management.