Daniel D. Arndt, Chair
Jiro Okochi, Vice Chair
Joseph M. (Trey) Loughran, Secretary
Bruce Schmaltz, Treasurer
Lynn Abrahamsen
Barbara Peterson Burwell
Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D.
Dennis L. Confer, M.D.
James E. Kwiatkowski
Wm. (Bill) G. Pomeroy
Richard P. Rieger
Daniel D. Arndt, Chair
Dan is chair of the Be The Match Foundation Board of Directors. As staff vice president and General Auditor at 3M for more than a decade, Arndt was directly involved in addressing changes to comply with corporate governance requirements throughout the world. He also participated in initiatives that helped 3M be successful in the ever-changing competitive and regulatory environments. He is also Board Chair of the National Marrow Donor Program, and has served on various other boards, including the Institute of Internal Auditors, Twin Cities Chapter; Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce; and International School of Brussels, Belgium. Arndt received a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Northwestern University and earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago.
Jiro Okochi, Vice Chair
CEO and Co-founder Jiro Okochi started Reval in 1999. Under his leadership, Reval delivered the first Softwareas- a-Service solution for derivative risk management and hedge accounting to both corporate treasury departments and financial institutions. Since then, Mr. Okochi has led the company through two acquisitions and continues to broaden the support that Reval’s single-version SaaS can provide the corporate treasurer or financial controller. Mr. Okochi is a published writer on issues from treasury management to derivative accounting under both FASB and IASB and is a frequent speaker at domestic and international industry conferences for the Association of Financial Professionals, Association of Corporate Treasurers, International Association of Corporate Treasurers (China), Association of Corporate Treasurers (Singapore) and Acumen, among others, and at events with Deloitte LLP, Ernst & Young LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Okochi is a charter member of the New York Area Board of Directors for the national music education nonprofit Little Kids Rock and is a graduate of the University of California at Berkley, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Genetics.
Joseph M. (Trey) Loughran, Secretary
Trey Loughran is President, Personal Information Solutions, at Equifax where he oversees consumer business that provides credit monitoring, identity management and debt reduction solutions to customers across the U.S. and Canada. Promoted to this position in December 2009, Loughran previously led the company's corporate development efforts, including leading global mergers and acquisitions and the company’s business expansion in new international markets including Russia and India. Loughran joined Equifax after working at BellSouth Corp., where he held a number of leadership positions, including Managing Director of Corporate Strategy and Planning. During his tenure at BellSouth, he also served as Executive Director of Marketing in BellSouth's Interconnection Services unit. Prior to joining BellSouth, he helped launch Global Food Exchange, an Internet-based software company, and was its Chief Financial Officer and head of Corporate Development. He also served nearly four years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Previous to McKinsey, he served as an attorney with King & Spalding in Atlanta and as an investment banking analyst at Lazard Frères & Co. in New York. Loughran holds a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar, and a law degree from Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude. Loughran serves on the Board of CURE Childhood Cancer.
Bruce Schmaltz, Treasurer
As Director of Finance/Controller for Be The Match, Bruce manages four senior managers and 50 staff to execute accounting operations including budget creation and internal/external reporting. He leads his team’s efforts to enhance processes and controls, organize and document financial processes, define internal and external reporting, implement new treasury management reporting, cash forecasting and annual planning, and analyze financial performance. Bruce also develops and presents financial reports for the Board, Finance, Investment and Audit Committee meetings for NMDP and Be The Match Foundation. Schmaltz was promoted to this position in 2011 after serving as Assistant Controller from 2003 – 2011. Prior to joining Be The Match/NMDP, Schmaltz served as Controller for MAR-CO Diversified, Inc. from 1990 to 2003. He earned his BS in Accounting from the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND.
Lynn Abrahamsen
Lynn has held leadership positions in health care for over 35 years. Most recently she served as Chief Operating Officer and then Chief Executive Officer of Hennepin Healthcare System in Minneapolis, until she retired in 2009. Lynn led this complex public hospital and clinic system through a governance change to a 501 c 3 public benefit corporation with an operating board structure, and designed and optimized new operating systems related to human resources, purchasing and strategic planning. She also successfully installed integrated electronic records and developed a new strategic plan and master facility plan. These changes resulted in capital investment for additional bed capacity, renewal of the physical plant at the main campus and the addition of community clinic sites. Lynn has a special interest in assuring access to quality health services for all. She has served extensively on boards of community organizations throughout her career.
Barbara Peterson Burwell
Upon completing her Miss USA, 1976 reign, Barbara Peterson Burwell graduated from St. Olaf College with triple majors in Speech Communication, American Studies and Political Science. Her extensive travel experience and outstanding public speaking added a key dimension in her pursuit in the world of public relations. Barbara also coauthored the book "Becoming A Beauty Queen." Burwell was recognized as one of America's Outstanding Women of Achievement and has been honored by the University of Minnesota as one of twenty-five Distinguished Women in Minnesota. She serves on several boards, including the Minnesota Orchestral Association, YMCA of Minneapolis, University of Denver Parent Council, Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, United Way Women in Leadership, American Swedish Institute, and the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center Community Advisory Board.
Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D.
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 Chair of the board of directors of Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Minnesota, the nation’s largest wish-granting organization. Chell received his M.D. from the University of Minnesota.
Dennis L. Confer, M.D.
Dennis L. Confer, M.D. is the chief medical officer of the NMDP. 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 authored or co-authored 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 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.
James E. Kwiatkowski
Mr. Kwiatkowski has served as FXall’s Head of Sales, Americas since March 2007 and added responsibility for Asia in January 2010. FXall is the leading independent electronic foreign exchange platform. Before joining FXall, Kwiatkowski worked at electronic trading platform FutureTrade from November 2002 to February 2007, where he led the global sales, services and marketing functions and was responsible for negotiating partnerships with third-party distributors. Prior to FutureTrade, he held senior management positions at several financial technology companies including Bridge, where he ran their Global Accounts program, and Reuters, where he was involved in launching Reuters Matching. Kwiatkowski received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from The Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1986 and a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance and International Business from New York University Stern School of Business in 1991.
Wm. (Bill) G. Pomeroy
Wm. (Bill) G. Pomeroy is founder and CEO of CXtec and TERACAI. CXtec is a global provider of new and certified pre-owned networking and voice equipment. TERACAI is a Cisco Silver Partner that helps its customers build, manage and optimize core networking, communication and data center solutions. He is also a leukemia survivor, diagnosed with AML in 2004 and received a transplant in 2005. Three years later, he met his donor, an experience that had a profound impact on his life. After his diagnosis, he established The William G. Pomeroy Foundation, which focuses on two of his great passions: historic preservation and research, and funding programs related to blood cancers. Understanding the need to increase diversity of the Be The Match Registry, the foundation works closely with NMDP to conduct recruitment drives in diverse communities. Pomeroy received his Master of Business Administration in 1968 from Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
Richard P. Rieger
Mr. Rieger has nearly 20 years of experience as an executive in and consultant to pharmaceutical, biotech, medical technology, healthcare services and private equity companies. Much of his focus has been on corporate strategy, business development, licensing/M&A and marketing. Mr. Rieger is a Vice President at Campbell Alliance, an inVentiv Health company, which is a leading management consulting firm specializing in the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical technology industries. Mr. Rieger is a leader of the firm’s Corporate Development practice that includes strategy and business development engagements, but he works across all of the firm’s practice areas. Previously, Mr. Rieger served as Vice President of Commercial Operations and Vice President of Business Development at several publicly traded and venture capital-backed biopharmaceutical firms, and as a senior member of L.E.K. Consulting’s Life Sciences, Medical Technology and Private Equity practices. Mr. Rieger also held positions of increasing responsibility in business development and marketing at Abbott Laboratories. Mr. Rieger earned an MBA in Finance and Business Policy with honors from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. Mr. Rieger lives in suburban Chicago with his four children and has a personal connection to the Be The Match Foundation. His wife, Lori, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in October 2011 and received a double cord stem cell transplant in May 2012. Despite being in remission from AML post-transplant, Lori passed away due to medical complications in December 2012. Rich and Lori were married nearly 27 years. Lori’s mother also passed away from complications associated with AML in March 2000.