Barbara Hannah Grufferman, Secretary: Barbara Hannah Grufferman is a leading expert on positive aging, authoring the books Love Your Age: The Small Step Solution to a Better, Longer, Happier Life and The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money and More. She consults with multinational companies targeting the 45+ market and is President of Best of Everything Media. Barbara also launched the Menopause Cheat Sheet newsletter and hosts the Age Better podcast. Barbara has appeared on major TV and radio shows and is a chief motivator for fitness after 40, having completed sixteen marathons. As an enthusiastic runner with a motivation to raise awareness about bone health and osteoporosis, she created the BHOF ‘Be Bone Strong’ NYC Marathon Team. She previously led World Congress, a global conference firm, and worked in magazine publishing.
Thomas F. Koinis, MD, FAAFP, Vice President: Having always enjoyed science and math, Dr. Koinis started college thinking that he would be a chemistry or math professor. After being exposed to the field of polymer science (plastics), he developed interests in medical research. From there, his love in working with people won out over research and he became a family physician. Now, 30 years later, it is interacting with people and contributing to their health that keeps him enjoying his work. He has special interests in sports medicine and health prevention, especially immunizations. He has also been involved with the world of vaccines at both state and national levels. To keep himself healthy, he enjoys his family and strives to strengthen his spiritual connections. He loves to bike, run, do triathlons, read, and play a bit of saxophone to maintain his well-being.
Charles B. Lawrence, Jr., Treasurer: Charles B. Lawrence, Jr., is the President of L3 Partners, LLC, a diversified family holding company in Houston, Texas. Mr. Lawrence provides strategic leadership and oversight across the company’s various business functions, including investments, operations and administration, real estate, and ranching operations. Prior to L3 Partners, Mr. Lawrence was a Financial Analyst at both Power Well Services, in Cypress, Texas, and Banc of America Securities’ E&P investment banking group in New York City. Mr. Lawrence holds an M.B.A. from the A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University, graduating in 2004, and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Southern Methodist University in 2000.
Kenneth W. Lyles, MD, President: For the last 30 years, Dr. Lyles’ research and clinical career has focused on understanding the risk factors for impairment and disability and the consequences of the two most common metabolic bone diseases involving older patients; Osteoporosis and Paget’s Disease of Bone. With this knowledge he has attempted to develop novel therapies for these problems. His training and subsequent clinical practice as an Endocrinologist and a Geriatrician uniquely positions him to take advantage of the new technologies, risk assessment tools to diagnose these disorders and new drugs that reduce fractures and functional disability. He has designed and participated as Co-Principal Investigator in a clinical trial that demonstrated functional improvement in women with vertebral fractures using an exercise and quality of life intervention. His work in understanding the functional impairments associated with Paget Disease of Bone positioned him to help Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation design and conduct a series of studies showing that intravenous zoledronic acid improved pain, function and bone remodeling in Paget patients. This work led the FDA to approve this drug to treat these patients. Now this agent is the drug of choice to treat the disorder because of its prolonged efficacy and safety. Finally, he and his colleagues were some of the first to describe the large re-fracture rate that occurs in all patients over age 50 years who sustain and recover from a low-trauma hip fracture repair. They used their finding to design and conduct the large international clinical trial using zoledronic acid to reduce the subsequent fracture rate after surgical repair of a hip fracture. They were also the first group to show that nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates had a positive effect on mortality in patients with osteoporosis. For the last four years he has observed and studied patients with Parkinson’s Disease and realized the tremendous burden and subsequent consequences of falls and fractures in the patients. Working closely with collaborators at the University of California San Francisco, Steven R. Cummings, MD, and Carlie Tanner, MD, PhD, they have designed, developed and have been awarded a novel in-home intervention with zoledronic acid to reduce the fracture rate and mortality in patients with Parkinson Disease. I his role as a clinician, Dr. Lyles treats patients with metabolic bone diseases at Duke University and VA Medical Centers.
Kathleen Shoemaker, PharmD, MBA, CPHIMS, Chair: Dr. Shoemaker is the Senior Director for Strategic Alliances at Premier, Inc. In this role, she works with professional medical societies and associations and Premier’s technology solutions for registry, reporting, learning management, and other services to meet these client’s strategic goals for quality, research, and education. Before Premier, Dr. Shoemaker was at the American Heart Association and was responsible for the strategic Health IT, quality measure, data, and registry development direction for AHA’s suite of quality and credentialing programs. Dr. Shoemaker came to AHA from Eli Lilly, where she worked with national quality organizations and alliances on mutually beneficial projects and policy. Dr. Shoemaker’s tenure at Lilly also included government payer strategy for Medicaid and Medicare Part D, and as an internal expert consultant for Medicare Part B, HIT strategy, payment models, and packaging/billing units. She enjoyed her preceptor role for Pharm D MBA students, taking on many of them for special projects for Lilly’s B2B organization. Dr. Shoemaker is a past Managed Care Pharmacy director and clinical manager at regional health plans. She has practiced extensively in both hospital and retail pharmacy as a pharmacist and immunizer. Dr. Shoemaker has a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Illinois, a master’s degree in Business Administration from Eastern Illinois University, and a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from North Dakota State University. She is certified in Comparative Effective Research and is a Certified Professional in Health Information Management. She has published and presented in state and national venues.