Patrons_Spring21_compressed.pdf - Torrance Memorial ...

TORRANCE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION

SPRING 2021

SAM & BHARTI SHETH One Family, Two Generations of Hospital Support

PATRON

SSPRIN

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Monday, August 9, 2021 • Palos Verdes Golf Club

All proceeds benefit Torrance Memorial’sLundquist Lurie Cardiovascular InstituteFor more information, please call 310-517-4703www.torrancememorialfoundation.org/golf

35th Annual Golf Tournament

SPRING 2021 | PATRONS 3

Board Notes

EMPOWERED TO IMPACT

Sometimes I feel I have made a career of volunteering. Well, maybe a second career. After 12 years in public accounting and finance, I took off that career hat to spend more time with my kids. Before I knew it, the volunteer world came calling and I really found my niche.

I guess I have a knack for organizing people and causes. I especially love fundraising—whether it’s selling high school VIP graduation seats or running a $2 million capital campaign. My volunteer path began 35 years ago and now feels like a blur. I’ve volunteered for many worthwhile philanthropic organizations, serving on several councils and boards and helping strengthen their impact on the communities they serve. A few of my favorites were the Los Angeles County Museum of Art–Costume Council, USC Keck Foundation and Los Angeles Music Center Club 100 (top 100 volunteers in Los Angeles). My highlight was serving as president of the Junior League of Los Angeles, an organization of 1,500 women whose focus is serving women and children at risk.

Around 2004, my volunteer focus became Palos Verdes High School, which was in its second year of reopening and needed a lot of fundraising. Eventually I crossed paths with Laura Schenasi, fundraiser extraordinaire! We bonded over kids’ events and USC tailgates. It took a few years, but after scaling back on various volunteer affiliations, I joined the Torrance Memorial Foundation board in 2013.

As a board member, I have proudly witnessed Torrance Memorial grow and earn many well-deserved accolades and successes. The affiliation with Cedars-Sinai has allowed the hospital to become a premier regional health care facility in the South Bay. With outstanding hospital leadership and countless heroes in the form of superior doctors, nurses and staff, Torrance Memorial is well-positioned to continuously serve our community. This has never been more important and exemplified in its greatest challenge yet: meeting the needs of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

While the past year has been challenging, philanthropic heroes big and small have emerged and made a tremendous impact in supporting the hospital. This year’s virtual Holiday Festival

“In Spirit” raised $1.1 million. Our fundraising continues, allowing Torrance Memorial to benefit the community with state-of-the-art technological and medical advancements. The 2021 focus continues in benefitting the Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute, where groundbreaking treatments are now available for all types of cardiovascular conditions.

I am thankful that my circle, which pushes me to stay informed and educated on issues, also encourages me to step back and disconnect, embrace the positive and be grateful. My husband, Gary, and I met 40 years ago. We have three wonderful now–adult kids with the bonus of three adorable grandkids. It has been an amazing journey. Most of all, I appreciate how we can all strive to be heroes with one thought, one gesture, one day at a time doing our part. I am proud and honored to be an ambassador for Torrance Memorial and to serve on the Foundation board.

It truly is a privilege. •

Ann Zimmerman, Board Member

Board Member Ann Zimmerman and Gary Zimmerman

“As a board member, I have proudly witnessed Torrance Memorial grow and earn many well-deserved accolades and successes. The affiliation with Cedars-Sinai has allowed the hospital to become a premier regional health care facility in the South Bay.”

Board of Directors 2020 -2021

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEMark Lurie, MD, PresidentMedical Director Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular InstituteTorrance Memorial Medical CenterPhil Pavesi, Vice President Retired Executive, TRWW. Gregory Geiger, TreasurerPrincipal, Westport Capital Partners, LLCHeidi Hoffman, MD, SecretaryRadiology, Torrance Memorial Medical CenterJoseph Hohm, CPA, JD, OfficerMedical Accounting ServicePatrick Theodora, OfficerSenior Executive Vice President, Platinum Home Mortgage, Co-Owner DocMagicMichael Zislis, Officer Founder and Owner, The Zislis GroupBOARD MEMBERSChristy AbrahamCommunity VolunteerJohn G. Baker The Brickstone CompaniesNadine BobitCommunity VolunteerStevan Calvillo, Attorney, Calvillo & MeyerPaul CampbellRetired Technology CEO Harv DanielsBoard of Directors, SAXA, Inc.Thyra J. Endicott, MDRadiation OncologyTorrance Memorial Medical CenterAlan GoldsteinFirst Vice President, Financial AdvisorGeorge Graham President Emeritus, ConsultantTorrance Memorial Medical CenterRick HigginsRetired Technology Management Professional Song Cho KleinCommunity VolunteerConnie Lai, Esq.Attorney, Board Chair,Ji Ren Primary School, TaiwanRichard LucyCommercial Property Investments, PresidentCrosswind Capital, Inc.W. David McKinnie, IIIConsultant, McKinnie Consulting

Eric Nakkim, MDEmergency Medicine, Torrance Memorial Medical Center Tom O’HernCEO, The Macerich CompanyRichard K. Rounsavelle, DDSGeneral DentistryMichael RouseRetired Toyota Executive Patricia Sacks, MDRadiology, Retired Medical Director The Vasek and Anna Maria Polak Breast Diagnostic CenterSam ShethCo-Founder and Senior Managing Director, VerityPointSam Sim President and OwnerChinese Gourmet ExpressSteven F. Spierer, Esq.Partner, Spierer, Woodward, Corbalis & GoldbergRussell VaronMorgan’s JewelersAnn ZimmermanCommunity VolunteerFOUNDATION STAFFLaura SchenasiExecutive Vice PresidentJudith GassnerSenior Director of Developmentand Principal GiftsSandy VandenBergeDirector of Planned GivingLisa TakataSpecial Events andPatrons Program ManagerSophia NeveuDevelopment OfficerMargaret DoranJill GoldenKaren RandazzoDevelopment Liaisons Torrance Memorial Medical Center treatsall people equally without regard to race, color, national origin, age, gender or disability.The section 504 coordinator can be reachedat 310-784-4894. If you do not wish to receive this publication, please contact marketing communications at 310-517-4706.

A Publication of the Torrance Memorial Foundation

EDITORJulie Taylor

DIRECTOR, MARKETING COMMUNICATIONSErin Fiorito

PUBLISHER, CREATIVE DIRECTORVincent Rios

COPY EDITORLaura Watts

CONTRIBUTORS

Michelle AbtLisa BuffingtonJohn FerrariRobin HefflerDiane Krieger

Gregory SchillNancy Sokoler SteinerLaura Roe StevensJulie Taylor

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Michael Neveux

Vincent Rios

Published by

Vincent Rios Creative, Inc.vrioscreative.com

©2021 Torrance Memorial Medical Center. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.


Contents

IN YOUR COMMUNITY36 Holiday Festival “In Spirit” Virtual Celebration38 Holiday Tree Decorating and

Heroes Tree39 Community Engagement Events40 COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics

SUPPORTERS41 Torrance Memorial gives special

thanks to our many supporters.

PROGRESS NOTES8 Director of behavioral health at

Torrance Memorial, Moe Gelbart, PhD 12 Keeping Torrance Memorial Breathing Safely14 Savoring the Journey – Hospice

Chaplain Tenzin Kiyosaki offers compassionate care 18 Hunt Cancer Center – One Year Later

CLINICAL SPOTLIGHT20 Lundquist Neurosciences Institute Offering leading-edge care to treat a

wide range of neurological disorders

EVERY DONATION COUNTS34 Thanksgiving meals, helping tiny babies

in the NICU, Giving Tuesday, Cami’s Jammies book donation

ON THE COVERSam and Bharti Sheth pictured by the bas relief that memorializes the original site of the hospital.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHAEL NEVEUX

FUTURE FOCUS 30 Local interior designer Carol Wharton

shows her generosity31 IRA beneficiary designations

PATRON PROFILES24 Sam Sheth shares his family’s story and

their legacy of patriotism and giving

AMBASSADORS CORNER28 Melody and Thomas Lowe, MD tell their personal connection to Cancer Care

YPPA PLAY-BY-PLAY32 Angela Park Sheldon: mom, wife,

philanthropist

FOLLOW US!

TorranceMemorial tmmcmedia

@TMHealthSystem torrancememorial

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6 PATRONS | SPRING 2021

Calendar

MIRACLE OF LIVING Via Facebook Live at 6:30 p.m.*Information & Questions: 310-784-3707

All lectures will provide a current state of COVID-19 and vaccine distribution updates.

April 15Coping with Anxiety During the Pandemic

June 24Importance of Sleep/Disorders

August 26Cancer Screenings

October 28Orthopedics/Spine

November 11Heart/Diabetes

Visit our Torrance Memorial Facebook Page for links to upcoming events.

How to join Facebook LiveStep 1 Go to Facebook.com/torrancememorial Step 2 Click on the “videos” buttonStep 3 Select the monthly video to join

*All dates and times are subject to change

FINANCIAL HEALTH SEMINARSVia Zoom, Fridays at noon - approximately 90 minutesInfo & RSVP: 310-517-4728

May 14 Generating Income in Retirement

July 9 Estate Planning Basics in 2021

September 10 Boot Camp for the Executor *All dates and times are subject to change

CALENDAR OF EVENTSA HEALTHY HEART AT ANY AGEVirtual Zoom Lecture Sponsored by The Torrance Memorial Integrative Medicine and Wellness Program

Tuesday, April 27 at 6 p.m.Featuring guest lecturer Christopher K. SuharMedical Director, Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine

Topics to be covered include:• Review the principles of

integrative medicine and the importance of incorporating this approach for patient care

• The main cardiac risk factors for coronary disease and goals for reducing these risks.

• Learn how lifestyle factors such as nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress management are critical for preventing and reversing heart disease.

To register, contact Margaret Doran 310-517-4728

Dr. Suhar is an integrative cardiologist with expertise in general cardiology and integrative medicine. He also has subspecialty training in echocardiography and nuclear cardiology.


awards & Accolades

On March 10, Newsweek announced its

new rankings for 2021. This year, Torrance

Memorial moved up eight points to rank

as the 40th best hospital in the nation,

10th best in California and for the first

time places Torrance Memorial in the top

elite 200 hospitals in the world.

Newsweek partnered with Statista Inc.,

to develop a complex methodology to ensure the

quality and validity of the ranking. Three data sources

were used for the evaluation: hospital recommen-

dations from peers, patient experience and various

medical KPIs.

Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence

Award

Torrance Memorial was named a 2020

Guardian of Excellence Award® winner by

Press Ganey. The Guardian of Excellence

Award recognizes top-performing health

care organizations in HCAHPS* that have

achieved the 95th percentile or above for

performance in Patient Experience.

Torrance Memorial is proud to be a first

time recipient of the 2020 CHIME (College

of Healthcare Information Management

Executives) Digital Health Most Wired

Recognition for Acute and Ambulatory

care. This recognition is the result of an

annual survey conducted to identify and

certify the adoption, implementation and

use of information technology by health-

care provider organizations. The results

are intended to improve patient safety and

outcomes by driving change in the health-

care IT industry.

Torrance Memorial is proud to receive two Blue Cross

Blue Shield - Blue Distinction® Center+ recognitions.

The first is for Knee and Hip Replacement, recognizing

facilities that perform total knee and hip replacement

surgeries safely, effectively and cost-efficiently. The second

is for Bariatric Surgery. The Blue Distinction Center+ title

goes a step further to also measure how efficiently high-

quality patient care is delivered.

The California Department of Public

Health (CDPH) recently awarded Torrance

Memorial Healthcare-Associated

Infections Antimicrobial Stewardship

Honor Roll, Bronze status. This two-

year designation is based on a three-

phase evaluation that involved both CDPH

internal and external reviews. The evaluations of each

program’s quality and impact of the CDC’s core elements

resulted in this important designation.

*Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems

TORRANCE MEMORIAL RECOGNITIONS

Magnet Award

Torrance Memorial has

received re-designation for the

third time of the prestigious

Magnet Recognition

Program® from the American

Nurses Credentialing Center

(ANCC). This designation

recognizes excellence in

nursing services.


Progress Notes


Progress Notes

ALTERING LIVESAdvocating for emotional wellness comes naturally to Morris (Moe) Gelbart, PhD. You could say the new director of behavioral health at Torrance Memorial Medical Center was bred for the job.

WRITTEN BY DIANE KRIEGER | PHOTOGRAPHED BY VINCENT RIOS

H e was born, after all, in a displaced persons camp in Wiesbaden, Germany—the

child of traumatized concentration camp survivors. The shtetls his Polish Jewish parents came from had been wiped off the map.

There was no going back, so Harry and Zelda Gelbart moved forward. They affirmatively chose happiness, resettled in Brooklyn, New York, and had two more babies. Harry supported the family as a tailor. Zelda raised the kids.

They never spoke of the Holocaust, but it surely colored their lives—in the Yiddish spoken around the kitchen table and, later in the career choices of two of their children. Both Moe and his sister Mia became psychologists.

Looking back, Gelbart reflects, there were similarities between his and his father’s professions: both were in the business of making alterations. Harry Gelbart adjust-ed sleeve lengths. Moe Gelbart readjusted troubled minds.

Though his role as director of behavioral health only started in October, Gelbart is no newcomer to Torrance Memorial. His connection goes way back to 1978— the year he earned his doctorate degree in psychology from USC.

He came to the profession a bit

circuitously. Gelbart had studied economics at Brooklyn College, but his heart just wasn’t in it. So he went to work as an English teacher at a Brooklyn junior high school. A remedial reading class exposed him to educational psychologists and social workers who showed him new ways to reach troubled teens. Intrigued, he enrolled in a master of educational psychology program at City College of New York. From there, he applied to the doctoral program at USC.

Gelbart and his wife, Debbi, moved to California in 1974. It was a time when USC’s most famous professor was Leo Buscaglia, aka “Dr. Love.” Gelbart himself was trained in “existential-humanistic psychology”—a school of thought focused less on treating disorders than on showing patients how to lead richer, fuller lives.

“It’s a really good framework for understanding people—how they think, make choices, all the things they do,” says Gelbart, now

Firing up the pizza oven is a long-standing tradition.


Progress Notes

a leader in the South Bay mental health community for more than 40 years. “It helped me understand myself as much as become a good psychologist.”

He began practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist in 1976, moonlighting while he worked on his doctorate. He counseled juvenile offenders in a Redondo Beach diversion program. He was a police psychologist with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

He was running a chronic pain program at a Redondo Beach rehab center when Torrance Memorial tapped him to direct its fledgling outpatient pain management unit. It was the beginning of a 42-year relationship that’s still going strong.

Along the way, Gelbart built

two large mental health private practices: PsychCare Alliance, a network of 400 practitioners that was dissolved in 1999; and Gelbart and Associates, until recently the South Bay’s largest psychotherapy group practice, with 40 clinicians spread across offices in Redondo Beach, Torrance and Palos Verdes. Last year, Gelbart sold that practice to Community Psychiatry so he could devote himself full-time to Torrance Memorial.

At 72, he now only sees a limited number of private patients. He’s happy to pass the clinical torch to younger psychotherapists, includ-ing his daughter Jamie, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

His new job at Torrance Memorial cements a role Gelbart has long

played informally—seeing to the emotional well-being of the hospi-tal’s 4,000-person workforce and making sure psychological services are readily available to patients and their families. “I love working with the hospital,” he says. “Whenever they needed something, I tried to help them develop or get it. I’ve tried to be a resource to the hospital for 40 years.”

Having directed Torrance Memorial’s pain program through the mid-1980s, Gelbart spent a de-cade as staff psychologist with the hospital’s now-disbanded inpatient psychiatric unit. In 1992, he added a new role as founding director of the Thelma McMillen Recovery Center.

Affectionately known as “Thelma,” the intensive outpatient

Dr. Gelbart and Debbi enjoy entertaining in their backyard.


Progress Notes

alcohol and drug treatment center works full-time with as many as 140 adult and teen patients. During the pandemic, the program is fully and completely functioning remotely. Gelbart remains McMillen Center’s executive director alongside his new role as Torrance Memorial’s director of behavioral health.

He has helped develop many other programs over the decades. One innovative program provides a psychiatrist in the emergency room two hours a day via tele-health, conducting patient mental health evaluations. In another project, Gelbart helped set up psychiatrists to deliver three hours a day of on-site services to all hospital departments.

On the workforce side, he oversees two employee benefits programs providing free counseling sessions to any Torrance Memorial staff or family member who needs them. Responding to unprecedented workplace stresses brought on by the pandemic, Gelbart has recently helped implement a coronavirus support group just for doctors.

In his new role, Gelbart is work-ing on several projects including increasing community mental health services supporting women’s reproductive mental health. In col-laboration with Deepjot Singh, MD, of the OB-GYN department, that service will provide better access to psychotherapy resources for patients dealing with miscarriage, postpartum depression or other pregnancy-related stress.

Another project he is collaborat-ing on with several physicians is attempting to integrate behavioral health into Torrance Memorial’s pri-mary care offices, allowing patients

quicker access to psychological and psychiatric care.

Since the pandemic started, Gelbart has also been one of the hospital’s mental health spokes-persons. Through appearances on television and quotes in newspaper interviews, he is a calming voice of resilience for the South Bay commu-nity. He also writes regularly for Torrance Memorial’s blog. He owns a therapy dog, a yellow lab named Sophie, who provides therapy to kids in school environments.

With all these connections, Gelbart calls the decision to sell his practice and become director of behavioral health a natural course to take at this time in his life. “Torrance Memorial has been a big part of my life,” he says wistfully. “I know everybody at the hospital. These are my friends. These are people who come to my house par-ties, and I go to their kids’ weddings.

About those parties … they’re the stuff of South Bay legend. Every few years, Gelbart throws a blowout Woodstock revival at his Rolling Hills Estates home. He was one of the 400,000 free spirits who descended on Yasgur’s dairy farm for the iconic 1969 rock festival, and he periodically likes to recreate the scene with 150 hippy-costumed friends.

He’s also famous for his pizza parties, firing up the backyard wood-burning oven and inviting guests to improvise with home-made dough and platters of exotic toppings. Gelbart’s own signature pizza is good old-fashioned mar-gherita. In another long-standing tradition, for 25 years Gelbart has enjoyed a weekly poker game with the same group of friends—all New

York transplants like himself. Gelbart is now a grandfather,

his home office filled with stuffed animals belonging to Emma, 4, and Nomi, 2. The girls live in West Los Angeles, but their parents, Josh and Sarah, take them to see their grandparents often.

Gelbart and Debbi will celebrate their 50th anniversary next year. An art teacher for three decades, she recently retired from the faculty of Rolling Hills Prep.

Looking back, Gelbart—in keeping with his early training in existential humanistic psychology—appreci-ates the rich, meaningful life he’s led. “I’ve had a good, long career. I’ve helped a lot of people. And if you ask me how I feel about the hospital, it’s like … this is where my loyalty lies. I’m so grateful to be here at this time in my career.” •

Enjoying a precious moment with granddaughters Emma and Nomi


Progress Notes

RESPIRATORY CARE PRACTITIONERS:

KEEPING TORRANCE MEMORIAL BREATHING SAFELYTorrance Memorial RCPs adapt to the “new normal” of COVID-19.

WRITTEN BY JOHN FERRARI | PHOTOGRAPHED BY VINCENT RIOS

Breathing is the simplest thing in the world … until it isn’t. That’s why Torrance Memorial’s Respiratory

Therapy Department has more than 90 respiratory care practitioners (RCPs) on staff, handling everything from respiratory rehabilitation to code blue respiratory arrest emergencies.

Emergencies can happen every day, but when the COVID-19 pandemic reached Southern California last March, every day was an emergency. COVID-19 causes respiratory distress. At the same time, it is spread, essentially, through breath: breathing, coughing and sneezing. When the disease hit, Torrance Memorial’s RCPs had to immediately adapt common proce-dures—from CPR to ventilation—in order to save patients and keep staff safe.

“When this started, there was so much we didn’t know about, but we knew some of the procedures we did were inclined to produce aerosols,” recalls director of pulmonary, sleep, and EEG services Pamela Michael, BS RRT-NPS. “We immediately went to inhalers instead of using nebulized treatments. We stopped using our small transport ventilator, because we had no way to filter the exhaled gas. We went to using the standard ventilator we use in the ICUs because we can filter the exhaled air. We also stopped performing noninvasive ventilation—again, we couldn’t filter the exhaled gas. Any procedure, we adapted.”

From the start, RCPs treated every patient as a potential carrier of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. When COVID-19 cases spiked in January, they continue to take this approach. Some of the most fundamental changes involved the most common procedures. For exam-ple, code blue calls bring RCPs, physicians and nurses on the run to help as needed.

Clinical respiratory educator Anthony Co, RCP, admires the courage of his colleagues on the front lines.


Progress Notes

In the pandemic, the number of staff in the room assisting the patient has been optimized for safety and efficiency, while maintaining the highest level of care.

“We have decided we will have one physician, one RN and one respiratory therapist in the room,” explains respiratory therapist Donna Tran, MPH, BS RRT. “Another person outside the room sets up equipment like the ventilator and intubation tray. That help can take a lot of the stress away.” Medical director of pulmonary services Dr. Kahlid Eltawil says, “Respiratory therapists are present at the bedside for the sickest of patients and play an integral role in their treatment and care.”

Torrance Memorial also put the LUCAS (Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System) chest compression system into wide use. LUCAS, a lightweight mobile sys-tem, is strapped to a patient’s chest to provide compressions for CPR, eliminating the need for a person to be near the patient, performing compressions manually.

The hospital also adopted proce-dures designed to alleviate respira-tory distress, most notably the use of proning, the position in which a patient lies flat on the stomach with their limbs unextended. Torrance Memorial was ahead of the curve, Tran notes. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital’s respiratory and nursing departments had been working together to develop and implement a proning protocol to treat patients with acute respiratory dis-tress syndrome (ARDS). Tran says she has seen the protocol, which involves the patient resting for 16 hours in the prone position followed by 8 hours in the supine position, result in better outcomes for patients. Proning has

been widely adopted by hospitals for patients with respiratory distress.

As Torrance Memorial’s respiratory therapists adapted existing proce-dures and adopted new protocols to minimize exposure and the potential spread of the virus, a parallel effort was under way to ensure all medical staff were familiar with the changes. It added up to a shift in how care-givers interact with patients, says clinical respiratory educator Anthony Co, RCP. Respiratory therapists are staffed throughout the hospital, and Co is used to going floor to floor, making sure they are all familiar with new equipment, procedures and protocols. But COVID-19 accelerated the pace of his days.

“When it first happened, there were times when there were changes almost every hour,” he recalls. “We have a better sense of it now.” Co educated RCPs and the nursing staff on everything from the new proce-dures to new PPE. “For example, we used to have one type of filter,” he says. “Now we have 10 different types in use around the hospital.”

“We have ongoing education for our regular staff and make a concert-ed effort to educate per diem staff as well,” adds Michael. The efforts didn’t end with group and one-on-one train-ing. Torrance Memorial’s mock code committee ensured staff put the new procedures into practice with mock code blue calls. Going through the process of responding to a “real” code blue is a “good opportunity to talk about wearing proper PPE,” Michael says. “The tendency is to just go in, but we can’t do that with COVID-19.”

The extra effort has paid off, she says. “We’ve had a really low expo-sure rate of our staff compared to other hospitals. It’s all about safety for everyone.” •

RESPIRATORY THERAPY 101

“Respiratory therapists rotate throughout the hospital,” explains Donna Tran, MPH, BS RRT. “Torrance Memorial trains respiratory therapists to work on every floor. For example, I cover mainly the ICU, but I also rotate through the ER and pediatrics.”

Areas covered by RCPs include:

Pulmonary Rehabilitation – Torrance Memorial’s eight-week outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program educates patients who have a chronic lung disease or compromised respiratory system on living with their condition, from nutrition and exercise to daily activities. The accredited program is “very worthwhile for the patients so they have quality of life,” says Pamela Michael, BS RRT-NPS. “When I started out in this field, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) patients didn’t go out. It’s a huge deal for the patients.”

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – “That’s where we take care of the tiniest patients,” Michael says. RCPs attend births if there is a likelihood they will be needed—for example, if the mother has a high-risk factor. They also provide care to newborns, whether that care is anticipated or not. As with any department in the hospital, “therapists get paged to the codes, and we go.”

Clinical Education – Clinical educators make sure RCPs, nurses and the physicians they work with stay up-to-date with hospital policies and procedures. “A lot of the job is to train new or experienced therapists new to Torrance Memorial,” says Anthony Co, RCP. “I review competency and patient safety and make sure their knowledge is on par with Torrance Memorial standards of excellence. I’ll also educate other nurses on procedure updates and new equipment. If I see something that isn’t meeting our core standards, I’ll go over procedures with them. And I keep up with new equipment, updates to best practices, and breakthroughs and how they can be adopted to our hospital. The biggest thing here is the quality of our care.”


Progress Notes

SAVORING THE JOURNEYHospice chaplain Tenzin Kiyosaki helps patients appreciate their lives while finding satisfaction in her own.

WRITTEN BY NANCY SOKOLER STEINER | PHOTOGRAPHED BY VINCENT RIOS

She started her days at 3:30 a.m., taking advantage of the quiet before the others arose by 5 a.m. She ate simple meals—mostly rice and

vegetables. Living in a cement building in the Himalayan foothills, she shivered throughout the winter.

Tenzin Kiyosaki couldn’t have been happier. She was in Dharamsala, India, training to be a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition. The only American in her nunnery at that time, Kiyosaki’s days were filled with prayers, meditation, classes and study. In 1985, she was ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Today, Kiyosaki serves as a hospice chaplain at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. She is part of the team that provides physical, emotional and spiritual comfort to patients and their families when the patient’s life expectancy is less than six months.

While offering nondenominational care to patients of various religions or no religion, Kiyosaki draws upon her background in approaching her work. Her studies taught her “everything is impermanent, everything changes,” she explains. “Our actions have effects. We have the possibility to purify our misconceptions, delu-sions and mistakes and have the potential to cultivate excellent qualities.”

Kiyosaki was drawn to spirituality and a desire to be of service from an early age. Growing up on the Big Island of Hawaii, she sang in a church choir with her mother. She learned about the impermanence of life, thanks to the damage caused by periodic volcanos and a tsunami. “We lived with nature,” she says. “We’d see molten rock consuming buildings, and a tsunami destroyed our town.”

Her mother, a staff nurse at the Peace Corps training center, cared for trainees bound for Southeast Asia. “Interacting with them inspired my desire to help others as well as my love of travel,” says Kiyosaki. “My family became friends with the families of the instructors, who came from around the United States and Southeast Asia. I was exposed to people from all traditions and faiths. In Hawaii, all the cultures mixed together. It was so rich and wonderful.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Antioch University and her master’s degree in Buddhist studies at Naropa University in Boulder. While in Colorado, Kiyosaki studied with a teacher from Tibet and decided she wanted to study in a more traditional Tibetan Buddhist setting. She decided to travel to India, where the Dalai Lama, other Tibetan monk/scholars and the Tibetan community live in exile. It took her nine months to save up for her journey.

Kiyosaki made it to Dharamsala in 1975. She would spend months at a time in India, then go back to the U.S. to earn enough money to return. In Southern California, she also worked at the Thubten Dhargye Ling Buddhist center, now in Long Beach. She served on the orga-nizing teams for the Dalai Lama when he visited Los Angeles, arranging events and handling logistics.

When he ordained her, the Dalai Lama gave Kiyosaki (whose given name is Barbara) the name Tenzin Kacho. Tenzin, which means “holding the teachings,” is also the Dalai Lama’s first name and the one he gives to all those whom he names. Kacho, means “enjoyer of space” which Kiyosaki says refers to the nature of reality.

Tenzin Kiyosaki was drawn to spirituality and a desire to be of service from an early age.

Tenzin sits with fellow Buddhist monks in Southern India circa 1990


Progress Notes


Progress Notes

When she first met the Dalai Lama early in her spiritual seeking, he told her, “You create conditions, so you can continually improve yourself; you have that potential. We all have that potential for enlighten-ment.” Then he continued with a chuckle, “Take myself, for example; when I become enlightened, I’ll be a very good person!”

For six years, Kiyosaki worked with cadets at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado. Wearing her robes and cropped hair, “I would tell them we have a lot of similarities. We both wear uniforms. We have the same hairdo, and we follow a code of ethics,” she says.

Kiyosaki started as a Torrance Memorial Hospice chaplain in 2008 and completed her clinical chaplain certification. She resonated with the idea expressed by a social worker colleague, who told her that patients in hospice are transitioning from the physical to the spiritual realm. “I try to normalize the experience,” she says. “Death is something we all face.”

“The goal of hospice is to promote a peaceful passing,” she continues. “We help patients and their families feel prepared, in-formed and ready. It doesn’t always happen.”

She encourages her patients to engage in a life review, inviting them to share their stories and values. The process can provide a sense of peace and gratitude for the patient and serve as a legacy for family members even as they struggle with grief and loss. Kiyosaki tries to direct patients to “find some contentment in their life experiences rather than dwelling on what they didn’t do or won’t get to do.”

Kiyosaki served as hospice chaplain for the parents of Heather Baker in 2017. “My parents loved her,” Baker says via email. “All three shared a love of the ocean and often spoke of the places they had seen or swam when they were younger. Tenzin remembered minute details about what mattered to them and would bring them up in discussion and life review. She would request Dad to offer a prayer each visit,

which he loved. When my mother passed away, Tenzin encouraged my father to write something about Mom he could read at her memorial service. She cared about them, and they loved her.”

Kiyosaki noticed that her appearance—clad in brick-red robes, her head shaved—could disconcert patients. That, along with a desire for more flexibility in her life, led Kiyosaki to return her vows in 2013. She still retains her Buddhist faith and returns to India for several weeks most years.

Kiyosaki just completed a book, The Three Regrets, tentatively scheduled for publication in March. She imparts insights she’s gained from working with hospice patients, focusing on three areas in which they have expressed regrets. The first deals with missed opportunities and making peace with the road not taken. The second refers to love and the ability to express it to others. The third involves forgiveness and the ability to release grievances with others or themselves.

“At the end of life, there are a lot of things going on in our hearts,” says Kiyosaki. “Along with our medical con-dition, we still have to contend with our emotions.” She hopes the book will serve as motivation “to work on our healthy emotional life throughout our lives, not just at the end.” •

REDUCING REGRET

In her book, The Three Regrets, Torrance Memorial hospice chaplain Tenzin

Kiyosaki writes about the disappointments patients often express at the end of life. She offers suggestions for living life in a way that may lessen or avoid these feelings.

“When you experience regret, look at it as a tap on the shoul-der reminding you to take care of the issue rather than ignor-ing it,” she says. “For example, maybe you need to apologize to someone. Do it while you can. We don’t know how much time we or others have.”

Regarding missed opportu-nities, she recommends being both realistic and creative. That means honestly assessing our limitations while still looking for ways to fulfill the need or desire represented by the missed chance. “We have oppor-tunities to recreate ourselves in amazing ways,” she says.

Tenzin with His Holiness the Dalai Lama

A LEGACYOF CAREOur lives are defi ned in many ways, some which refl ect the level of our

accomplishments. But for those with a deeper interest, few qualities endure

longer than the expression of our love—whether it’s aimed toward our family,

our community or the thousands of lives we help transform along the way.

Your support and contributions, of any amount, help expert community

care thrive for years to come.

Learn more about starting your own legacy at www.TMLegacy.org


Progress Notes

O n December 16, 2019, the Torrance Memorial Donald

& Priscilla Hunt Cancer Center officially opened its doors. Now more than one year later, the Hunt Cancer Center has established itself as a community cancer care focal point, providing state-of-the-art, comprehensive treatment for South Bay residents. Designed with patients in mind, the light-filled Hunt Cancer Center brings expertise, patient convenience and state-of-the-art treatments into one location.

A PARTNERSHIP FOR

ADVANCED CARE

Torrance Memorial’s partner-ship with Cedars-Sinai brings more cancer experts to the South Bay, providing patients with access to the expertise of renowned cancer leaders from one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers.

“Cancer experts from Torrance Memorial and Cedars-Sinai hold meetings for specific cancer types to discuss patient care and ensure everyone is up to date on the latest clinical trials, guidelines, treatments and technology,” says Andrew Horodner, MD, a

hematologist-oncologist at the Hunt Cancer Institute. “That means South Bay residents have access to the most advanced cancer treatments and clinical trials, right at their doorstep.”

Hunt Cancer Center Institute specialists also participate in multidisciplinary tumor boards, including tumor boards specific to breast, gastrointestinal, lung and brain tumors. Tumor boards allow physicians across multiple specialty areas to collaborate on each patient’s case. That means every patient receives opinions from multiple specialists includ-ing radiologists, pathologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, geneticists and more.

“Our patients find it reassur-ing to know their case was pre-sented at tumor board, where a variety of specialists will look at it from the perspective of their area of expertise,” says Vanessa Dickey, MD, a hematologist-on-cologist at the Hunt Cancer Institute. “Not every cancer center has this level of collabo-ration and connectivity.”

“Our patients get a second, third, and fourth opinion—and sometimes more—without having to go anywhere else,” says Dr. Horodner.

CONVENIENT, COORDINATED

CARE

The Hunt Cancer Center is located on the Torrance Memorial Medical Center

HUNT CANCER CENTER: ONE YEAR LATERWRITTEN BY LISA BUFFINGTON

State-of-the-art, 40,000 square-foot Hunt Cancer Center located on the Torrance Memorial campus

Vanessa Dickey, MD

Andrew Horodner, MD


Progress Notes

campus, providing patients with convenient access to compre-hensive cancer care.

“The minute we find some-thing suspicious, our patients are immediately assigned to a nurse navigator, who can often coordinate an emergency appointment with one of our specialists or an imaging test right next door,” says Dr. Dickey. “It’s one thing to find out bad news, but it’s another to find out bad news without a plan.”

“Our nurse navigators are such an important part of our program,” says Dr. Horodner. “They not only get patients where they need to go, but they are also advocates who ensure each patient has the informa-tion and education they need.”

In addition to nurse navigators and a full range of cancer care clinicians, patients also have access to a geneticist who can provide onsite genetic counsel-ing and a licensed clinical social worker who can connect them with resources and support. Along with standard treatment methods, patients have access to integrative medicine modalities such as aromatherapy, yoga breathing and positioning tech-niques, and an oncology-trained dietitian. These therapies link to treat the patient’s overall body, mind and spirit.

MORE SPACE, ENHANCED

SAFETY

During COVID-19, cancer care at Torrance Memorial Medical Center has never been compromised. The spacious, 40,000-square-foot Hunt Cancer

Center allows clinicians to safe-ly treat patients while adhering to social distancing guidelines, which is especially crucial for patients receiving cancer treatment that could weaken their immune system.

“In our infusion suite, our pa-tients are 12 feet apart instead of 6 feet, which makes people feel safe,” says Dr. Dickey. “We are also able to stagger lab appointments and develop pathways to minimize contact between patients.”

The additional space also allows patients to be accompa-nied by a support person during appointments and treatment sessions, significantly reducing stress and improving well-be-ing. “We haven’t missed one day due to COVID-19,” says Dr. Dickey. “You can’t close down with cancer.”

MORE THAN JUST A JOB

Although the Hunt Cancer Center is a beautiful building, it’s the team approach to treat-ment and the patient-physician partnerships that make it such a presence in the South Bay. “All the physicians live in the South Bay, and we are committed to supporting our community. It’s more than a job. It’s really personal to us,” says Dr. Dickey. “Plus, it’s nice for patients not to have to brave those freeways to get the latest cancer care.”

“I’m proud to be a part of the Hunt Cancer Institute, and I’m honored our patients put their faith in us to deliver quality cancer care close to home,” says Dr. Horodner. •

COLLABORATION BRINGS LEADING-EDGE CLINICAL TRIALS TO HUNT CANCER CENTER

T he Hunt Cancer Institute is currently offering several clinical trials for various cancer types, including pancreatic,

lung, lymphoma and breast cancer. According to Swati Sikaria, MD, a hematologist-oncologist at

Hunt Cancer Center, the organization sources some of the most

promising clinical trials through partnerships with Cedars-Sinai, other resource networks and pharmaceutical companies.

“We look at the available clinical trials and choose the

best ones for our patient popula-tion,” says Dr. Sikaria. For example,

because breast cancer is the No. 1 diagnosis at the Hunt Cancer Center, the team can select the breast cancer clinical trials that provide the most benefit to the South Bay community.

According to Dr. Sikaria, the Hunt Cancer Institute is opening a liquid biopsy clinical trial for asymp-tomatic patients receiving screening mammograms. The goal of the trial, she says, is to eventually develop a blood test for breast cancer detection.

The team is also looking at combining novel immunotherapy with chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer to improve cure rates, as well as interventions during survivorship. “One of our clini-cal trials is looking at whether weight loss reduces breast cancer recurrence risk,” says Dr. Sikaria.

The Hunt Cancer Institute is also conducting an open study for lymphoma that looks at whether oral medications are more effective with fewer side effects when compared to traditional chemothera-py. “These are treatments many patients can only get at a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, and we provide them right here in the South Bay,” she says.

NEUROSCIENCESClinical Spotlight

RESEARCH AND CLINICAL TRIALS

Through our Cedars-Sinai partnership, our brain tumor team offers eligible patients with primary and metastasized brain tumors access to breakthrough clinical trials in the areas of

chemotherapy, immunotherapy and precision medicine. We use genetic information about the brain tumor to

personalize treatment for greater effectiveness.

COMPREHENSIVE STROKE CENTER

As a certified Comprehensive Stroke Center, Torrance Memorial in partnership with

Cedars-Sinai provides a complete continuum of stroke care, from diagnosis and treatment through reha-bilitation. The latest technology, coupled with the expertise of our surgeons and staff, means our stroke team has the

highest level of competence in the emergency treatment of all types of stroke.

GENERAL NEUROLOGY

Torrance Memorial specializes in a full range of neurological care inclu-sive of emergency and non-emergency neurological conditions, including migraine/headache, endocrine conditions and movement disorders. Our

neurologists offer a full spectrum of care from diagnosis through treatment and ongoing condition management.

NEUROLOGICAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT (NEURO ICU)

Our Neuro ICU offers round-the-clock, comprehensive monitoring and treat-ment for patients recovering from neurosurgery or a neurological disorder or injury. Our experienced neurointensivists have access to state-of-the-art technology, allowing them to provide specialized monitoring, address compli-cations and deliver leading-edge, evidence-based treatment promoting recov-ery and improved long-term outcomes.

LUNDQUIST NEUROSCIENCES INSTITUTETorrance Memorial’s Lundquist Neurosciences Institute in part-nership with Cedars-Sinai offers world-class neurological services, right here in the South Bay com-munity. Expert neurologists and subspecialists, state-of-the-art technology, precision medicine and access to the latest clinical trials mean patients receive a full spectrum of care for all types of neurological conditions.


NEUROSCIENCES


Clinical Spotlight

NEUROVASCULAR SURGERY AND NEUROINTERVENTION

Expert neurovascular and neurointervention specialists use the most advanced technology to treat a complete range of conditions

that affect the blood vessels of the brain. Our surgeons use the latest techniques to deliver minimally invasive care for strokes,

aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), carotid artery disease and other neurovascular conditions.

BRAIN TUMOR

We take a team approach to providing leading-edge treatment for all types of brain tumors, both primary and metastatic. Personalized treatment plans include the most advanced options in neurosurgery, radiation oncology and neuro-oncol-ogy, including minimally invasive procedures such as keyhole

surgery. Patients have access to the latest clinical trials, including genomic and immunotherapy options.

MOVEMENT DISORDERS

We provide comprehensive services, from diagnosis through treatment and rehabilitation, for all types of movement disorders

including Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. Neurologists, neurosurgeons, subspecialists and rehabilitation specialists work together to provide personalized treatment plans. In collaboration with Cedars-Sinai physicians, treatments may included leading-edge therapies such as new medication options, botulinum toxin (Botox®) and deep brain stimulation (DBS).

ACUTE INJURY AND CRITICAL CARE

Patients with acute brain injury receive critical and immediate neuro-logical care from Torrance Memorial’s trauma and neurosurgery staff. Once stabilized, acute brain injury patients are transferred to the

Neuro ICU for further treatment and round-the-clock monitoring and care.

NEUROSURGERY

Our neurosurgery team offers patients in the South Bay the latest minimally invasive treatments for brain tumors, cere-

brovascular disorders and other neurological conditions using advanced techniques and technologies, such as

stereotactic radiosurgery, interventional neurora-diology, endoscopic surgery, image-guided surgical

navigation and microneurosurgery.

BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS NEUROSCIENCES INSTITUTE REQUIRES HIGHLY TRAINED EXPERTS AND CARE TEAMS, EXPERIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,” SAYS INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGIST GEORGE SO, MD. “BUT IT ALSO MUST INCLUDE COMPASSION AND DEDICATION TO TREAT THE WHOLE PATIENT.


Clinical Spotlight

WORLD-CLASS NEUROSCIENCES CARE RIGHT HERE IN THE SOUTH BAYWRITTEN BY MICHELLE ABT

Neurological conditions are among the most complex to diagnose and treat. The neurologists,

neurosurgeons and neurointerventionists at the Torrance Memorial Lundquist Neurosciences Institute offer leading-edge, collaborative care to successfully treat a wide range of neurological disorders, including serious stroke, brain tumors, movement disorders and more — all without leaving the South Bay.

The Lundquist Neurosciences Institute’s outstanding care reflects Torrance Memorial’s long-term commitment to providing world-class neurological services right here in our community. To that end, the Institute has built a team of experts with the knowledge and experience nec-essary to provide patients with a complete continuum of services, from diagnosis to treatment to rehabilitation, using advanced treatment options and resulting in the best possible outcomes.

“Here at the Lundquist Neurosciences Institute, we have the capability to handle a wide range of neurological conditions, from routine to the most complex,” said endovascular neurosurgeon Paula Eboli, M.D. “We have the structure, programming and technology to offer patients everything they need to make a successful recovery.”

COLLABORATIVE NEUROLOGICAL CARE

STARTS AT DIAGNOSIS

Patient care is planned and delivered collaboratively, often starting with the

Institute’s neurologists who provide complete evaluative services.

“Our neurologists offer comprehensive diagnostic services and work closely with the patient’s primary care physician and appropriate specialists to create a treatment plan,” says neurologist Jeffrey Kim, MD.

“Our patients and their families find it reassuring to know we follow them throughout the entire process — from di-agnosis through treatment and follow-up,” says Dr. Kim.

Additionally, the Institute’s close affil-iation with Cedars-Sinai helps facilitate a team approach to patient care. Says Dr. Kim, “Our collaboration simplifies the patient referral process so patients can have convenient access to subspecialist care. The combined expertise of this entire team means we provide outstanding inpatient and outpatient care for all types of neurological conditions, right here in the community.”

COMPREHENSIVE TREATMENT FOR

MOVEMENT DISORDERS

The Lundquist Neurological Institute’s neurology team treats patients with all types of movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, dystonia and ataxia. Patients work closely with their neurologist to create an ongoing treatment plan helping them manage their condition and preserve their quality of life.

In addition to the Institute’s experi-enced team, patients also have access to subspecialty services available at the new

Torrance Memorial Movement Disorders Clinic which opened in January.

Led by Cedars-Sinai neurologist Echo Tan, MD, the Institute staff works closely to develop treatment plans that may include medications, botulinum toxin (Botox®) injections and Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). Patients also have access to innova-tive clinical trials.

“We work collaboratively to provide state-of-the-art services and comprehensive follow-up. This means South Bay patients don’t have to choose between local access or subspecialty care. We can provide both,” says Dr. Tan.

OUTSTANDING NEUROSURGICAL

CAPABILITIES

The Institute’s highly trained and experienced neurosurgeons use the latest minimally invasive neurosurgery tech-niques to perform surgeries.

“We can perform the full range of complex neurosurgeries including vascular, endovascular and brain tumor surgery,” says Dr. Eboli. “Our goal has been to bring the highest level of expertise to the South Bay through our affiliation with Cedars-Sinai, and we have built a very successful program.”

The Institute’s neurosurgeons are sup-ported by an outstanding team of nurses, technicians and rehabilitation specialists.

Says neurosurgeon Melvin Snyder, MD, “Surgeons can’t do their work in isola-tion; they need the support of excellent


Clinical Spotlight

ancillary care, and we have that at Torrance Memorial. It is one of the things that makes the medical center stand out.”

Senior administrative support has also been critical to the neurosurgery pro-gram’s success. Says Dr. Snyder, “Torrance Memorial’s leadership team has been totally committed to building a first-class Neurosciences Institute, and it is evident in the quality of the technology available to us.”

ADVANCED TREATMENTS AND ACCESS

TO CLINICAL TRIALS FOR BRAIN TUMOR

PATIENTS

Brain tumor patients treated at the Institute can be assured of access to the most advanced treatment options available. Treatment plans are personalized for each patient based upon their specific tumor type and may include neurosurgery, neuroradiology, neuro-oncology or a com-bination. The Institute’s brain tumor team works collaboratively, and each patient’s case is reviewed in detail at a monthly brain tumor board.

Additionally, Torrance Memorial’s affil-iation with Cedars-Sinai means that brain tumor patients have access to the latest research and state-of-the art clinical trials. Options include breakthrough opportunities in precision medicine and immunotherapy and new drugs offering real hope for patients with certain tumors that have previously been difficult to treat.

COMPREHENSIVE TREATMENT FOR ALL

TYPES OF SERIOUS STROKE

Torrance Memorial Medical Center is a certified DNV GL - Healthcare Comprehensive Stroke Center, meaning the medical center has achieved the highest level of competence for treatment of any type of serious stroke or stroke compli-cation. Our stroke patients benefit from round-the-clock access to specialists at the medical center and at Cedars-Sinai through our Tele-Stroke program.

“When patients are having a stroke, minutes matter. Our Tele-Stroke program is designed to get patients diagnosed and treated as quickly as possible, without having to be transported to another hospital,” says Shlee Song, MD, director of Torrance Memorial’s and Cedars-Sinai stroke programs.

The Institute’s neurosurgeons use the latest brain and blood vessel imaging tech-nology to perform procedures that include clipping and percutaneous coiling to treat brain aneurysms, percutaneous thrombec-tomies to remove blood clots that cause ischemic strokes, and carotid endarterecto-my and stenting to remove blockages and prop the carotid arteries open.

“These new imaging technologies are making a big difference in stroke patient outcomes,” says interventional radiologist Richard Krauthamer, MD. “For instance, VIPRE RapidScan® Technology uses artificial intelligence to create high-qual-ity images very quickly. The radiologist receives CT angiography and perfusion results faster, which means we treat the pa-tient faster. With each minute that passes before stroke intervention, about 2 million brain cells are lost; therefore the quicker we can perform interventions, the better the patient’s prognosis.”

In addition to the emergency diagnosis and treatment of strokes, additional re-quirements for receiving a Comprehensive Stroke Center designation include estab-lishing a neuro ICU and providing patients and families with rehabilitation and education services.

“Not all hospitals have these advanced technologies or treatment capabilities, which are often only available at academic centers,” says interventional radiologist Donny N. Baek, MD. “Torrance Memorial has built a neurosciences institute that provides our community and patients with access to the latest advancements in stroke care.” •

WORLD-CLASS CARE WITH A LOVING TOUCH

Dr. Melvin Snyder has been performing surgery at Torrance Memorial for 30 years and has witnessed first-hand the evolution of the Lundquist Neurosciences Institute into the top-notch center it is today. He is proud of the world-class services the Institute has to offer, but he is equally proud those services are still provided with the care and compassion Torrance Memorial has always been known for. Dr. Snyder says, “Patients come to Torrance Memorial because we have a reputation for providing state-of-the-art care, and we have a fine group of physicians who have all trained at academic medical centers. But patients also come because the level of care is personal in a way you can’t get a larger institution. We have all the skill and technol-ogy, and we deliver it with loving care.”


Sam and Kay Sheth work hard to prioritze family, philanthrophy and community.


ONE FAMILY, TWO GENERATIONS OF HOSPITAL SUPPORTWRITTEN BY DIANE KRIEGER | PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHAEL NEVEUX

To Sam Sheth, Torrance Memorial is no ordinary hospital. It’s where he drew his first breath. Both he and his brother,

George, were born in the original building on Engracia Avenue—delivered by the esteemed Charles Nemeth, MD, a Torrance Memorial icon who passed away in 2013.

Childhood bumps and bruises kept bringing Sheth back to the hospital, and an invisible cord still ties the 53-year-old businessman to his birthplace. “When I broke my wrist on a skateboard in fifth grade, we went to Torrance Memorial,” says Sheth, now a hospital Foundation board member and Patron. “When I got a spike in my ankle playing pony league baseball, I went to Torrance Memorial,” he continues, tallying an impressive list of adolescent injuries. “When I walked through a plate glass window in high school, I went to Torrance Memorial. And when I was in a five-car pileup on the 110 freeway in my senior year, I went to Torrance Memorial.”

The same was true for his father, mother and brother. “Every time anybody in our family had to go to the hospital, it was always Torrance Memorial,” he shares.

So when the family patriarch, Harshad Sheth, fell ill on Thanksgiving in 2012, they rushed him to Torrance Memorial, where he was admitted for evaluation. After a complete workup, doctors delivered the heartbreaking diagnosis: advanced, aggressive cancer of the gall bladder.

“We became very close to the hospital then,” Sheth recalls. “My dad was going through all these tests and treatments, and they took such wonderful care of him. The physicians and staff were so helpful, knowledgeable, compassionate. We never felt rushed. It was comforting.”

Harshad and his wife, Bharti, had been Torrance Memorial Foundation Patrons since 2010. After his father died in early 2013—peace-fully, at home, with his family around him—Sheth got more involved with the Foundation. He started making sizeable donations. In 2016, he and his wife, Kay, also joined the Patrons program.

“It has been very rewarding to give back,” Sheth says. “And it’s a lot easier to ask other people for money when you’re giving significantly yourself. I tell our friends what a meaningful difference the hospital made in my dad’s quality of life and just how important that is to the community.”

While Sam and Kay Sheth are both California natives, India looms large in both their family his-tories. Kay was born and raised in San Francisco in a bicultural home. Her mom’s parents had immigrated from Genoa, Italy. Her dad was the scion of a prominent family in Tamil Nadu, India, and the grandson of a famous architect credited with many important civic buildings in Chennai.

Sheth—co-founder and senior managing direc-tor of VerityPoint, a boutique consulting firm—is the child of Gujarati immigrants who achieved the American dream. His father, Harshad, had

Harshad Sheth came from Gujarat India in 1959 to study mechanical engineering at USC.


come from Gujarat, India, in 1959 to study mechanical engineering at USC. He earned a master’s degree in metallurgical engineering at UCLA before starting his career at the Armco Steel plant in Torrance, one of the nation’s largest.

There weren’t many other South Asians in California back then. “My dad was one of the early ones,” Sheth says. When Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru paid a visit to Los Angeles in 1963, Harshad was tapped to organize a meet-and-greet for the ex-pat community. “My dad rounded up all the adults from India in Southern California that he could find. It was only 85 people.”

After finishing his education, Harshad went home to Gujarat with a plan to immigrate to the United States. Six weeks later he returned with his bride, Bharti, and they laid permanent roots in Southern California.

“He became an extremely patriotic American,” Sheth says. “My dad was actually born on the 4th of July. He loved everything about this country and imbued us with that same sense of patriotism to this great country.”

Through the 1970s and ’80s, the Southland remained far less multicultural than it is today. Sheth vividly re-calls being almost the only South Asian kid at Howard Wood Elementary School and Dapplegray Intermediate School. Today, about 150,000 people of Indian heritage live in the region.

The first few years were challenging, but the Sheth family persevered.

“It was the classic immigrant story,” Sheth says. “My parents worked hard. It was unbelievable what they managed to do on my dad’s income in the early days.”

The oldest of six children, Harshad helped two younger brothers settle in America, helping to support them through college and watching them get established in their professions. “My first uncle came and lived with us in 1969,” Sheth recalls.

“His youngest brother came and lived with us starting from 1977.”

Then it was Bharti’s turn. “My mom had been an outstanding student in

India, but she put her education on hold to have kids,” Sheth says. When her boys were old enough to start school, Bharti enrolled at Cal State Dominguez Hills as a math major.

“My dad was very supportive of her education,” Sheth says. “If she had to study on the weekends, he and my uncle would take us out for the day. But she was pretty amazing. Going to college with two young sons at home, she made it look easy. Dinner was always on the table, our clothes were always washed, the house was always neat.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree, Bharti earned her master’s degree in biostatistics at the UCLA School of Public Health, where she caught the eye of doc-torate students Fred Wasserman and Pam Anderson, founders of Maxicare Health Plans. They recruited her as chief biostatistician for California’s first HMO, and Bharti embarked on a pioneering role in the medical data industry.

Meanwhile, Harshad’s engineering career thrived. During his years with Armco Steel (later National Oilwell), Harshad was awarded six patents for metal alloys. When the company moved to Houston in 1984, Harshad opted to stay in California and focus on distributing his patented products internationally. He later sold that business to a friend, Gordon Shultz, and then managed that business at Shultz Steel until his retirement in 2012.

Like his parents, Sam Sheth works hard, prioritizes family, shares his resources generously and somehow makes it all look easy. In addition to supporting Torrance Memorial, he is a passionate advocate for Junior Achievement—a global organization with the mission of educating children in financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Sheth has been active in the JA SoCal chapter since 1997, serving as a past board chairman. For the last dozen years, he has chaired the development committee.

“I’ve helped to raise a lot of money for Junior Achievement,” he says, “but what I love most is getting in the classroom.” The group dispatches 4,000 volun-teers into hundreds of K–12 schools across L.A. County, reaching nearly 60,000 students annually.

“I just love the idea of teaching kids to make good

Vintage family portrait of Sam,

Bharti, Harshad and George Sheth

circa 1969


financial decisions and become entrepreneurs,” he says. “Being able to tell them my story—how my family lived the American dream by doing the very things Junior Achievement is trying to teach—it’s very personal.”

Sheth’s third institutional passion is UCLA. He’d entered as a pre-med freshman in 1985 but experienced a nauseating change of heart upon observing an open-heart surgery. He ended up majoring in busi-ness-economics—a hybrid concentration that merges accounting and finance with economics.

So enthusiastic was Sheth about the program that he started the Economics Business Student Association as a junior. He met his future wife, Kay, through that group.

A few years later, Sheth founded Bruins in Business, an alumni network for business-economics graduates. He later served on the board of the UCLA Alumni Association and the UCLA Board of Governors, and he continues to mentor current UCLA students.

As for Kay, what started as a college friendship blossomed into romance at Peterson Consulting, where she and Sheth both landed early in their careers. Since intra-office relationships were frowned upon, Sheth resigned once they became engaged. His consulting ca-reer subsequently took him to Compensation Resource Group, a small Pasadena firm he and his partners later sold to Clark Consulting.

In 2007, Sheth and his partners split off from Clark Consulting to launch VerityPoint. The firm provides nonqualified retirement programs and employee ben-efits consulting services to more than 100 large public and private companies across a variety of industries.

Meanwhile, the Sheth family was also growing. Kay left her position as a principal at Tucker Alan Consulting in 2001 after the birth of their second child. Older daughter Julia, 22, graduated from Columbia University last spring and is a software engineer with Microsoft based in New York City. Sabrina, 20, is a musician and artist currently studying music produc-tion and songwriting through UCLA Extension.

When the girls were younger, Kay was active in the Manhattan Beach schools and community, including board positions on the PTA, Manhattan Beach Education Foundation, National Charity League and TEDxMB. She now pours her energy into Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits.

And she keeps an eye out for promising new ventures. She is our family CFO,” Sheth says.

The Sheths are investors with South Bay hote-lier-restaurateur Michael Zislis, a longtime friend and fellow Torrance Memorial Foundation Patron. They’re shareholders in Zislis’ Shade Hotels, The Strand House, Rock & Brews and the Brews Hall. They have also made investments alongside other entrepreneurs. Sheth and Zislis enjoy working together to recruit other friends to Torrance Memorial’s Patrons program.

“All this stuff fills my entrepreneurial itch,” says Sheth, who started his first side business as a kid. “I sold gum at school,” he says, with a crooked smile. “I also had a paper route. Later I started a landscaping business. My eighth-grade summer, I was making $300 a week. I had so much business, I started hiring other kids in the neighborhood to do the work.”

That entrepreneurial spark makes him a tremendous asset to Torrance Memorial. And Sheth has never felt prouder of the institution where he first drew breath. “Over the years, it has gone from being a small com-munity hospital to a world-class medical institution. We’ve been so impressed with the leadership,” he says.

He isn’t shy about sharing that perspective. “We’ve been educating our friends in the South Bay about all the great work going on at Torrance Memorial. I’ve helped recruit some very generous donors to the hospital. I tell them: ‘We’re not getting any younger, and it’s nice to know we have a leading, state-of-the-art hospital in our community.’” •

Julia, Kay, Sabrina and Sam Sheth enjoy a family day at Laguna Beach.


Ambassadors corner

Melody and Thomas Lowe, MD, met in high school and today are advocates for cancer care and survivorship.Below: Beyond Remission gives hope to people upon diagnosis.

A PERSONAL CONNECTION TO CANCER CAREWRITTEN BY NANCY SOKOLER STEINER | PHOTOGRAPHED BY VINCENT RIOS

M elody Lomboy-Lowe and Thomas Lowe, MD, understand cancer from both sides. Melody overcame childhood acute

lymphoblastic leukemia, having undergone treatment from ages six to nine. Dr. Lowe, a specialist in hematology and oncology with the Torrance Memorial Physician Network, practices at the Hunt Cancer Center. In fact, he chose his specialty as a result of his wife’s experience.

The couple met as high schoolers while working as summer swim instructors and lifeguards in Sierra Madre. He was 17; she was 16. Thomas already knew he wanted to become a physician. “I always thought studying the human body was fascinating,” he says. “How could it not be, as you are studying yourself?”

Melody’s story inspired him to explore oncology. He began volunteering with her former physician, Robert Rosen, MD, at the City of Hope.

“I sat with him when he did bone marrow biopsies. He showed me how to review blood and bone marrow slides under the microscope—what were normal cells and what were cancerous,” recalls Dr. Lowe. “The most impressive thing about him, though, was his empathy and how he counseled patients and their families. You could tell he shared in the joys and sorrows of his patients, and it was okay to share in those feelings.”

Today Dr. Lowe brings those same qualities to his own work as a cancer physician. “I believe in treating the whole person, not just the disease,” he says. “Every patient is different, and each person has unique,


Ambassadors corner

The Lowe brothers, Daniel (15), Koa (12) and Aiden (9), enjoy outdoor activities—especially the rope swing close to their home.

individual goals and desires.”“Dr. Lowe is an exceptional oncologist, both for

his clinical skills as well as the connection he makes with each of his patients,” says Heidi Assigal, vice president of Torrance Memorial Physician Network. “As an academic, he brings the best, most current therapies to his practice. And as a caregiver, he openly shows his care and commitment to each of his patients. When patients see him, they know they are in good hands.”

Dr. Lowe’s practice, Torrance Memorial Physician Network – Cancer Care, follows Medicare’s Oncology Care Model. This standard, undertaken by fewer than 200 practices nationwide, recognizes a patient-focused approach.

“It means our practice, in concert with Torrance Memorial, is dedicated not only to excellent clinical care but also to supporting patients throughout their treatment,” says Dr. Lowe. “That support is made possible thanks to services such as nurse navigators, social workers, palliative care specialists and a scheduler-to-doctor ratio of 1:1. At the Hunt Cancer Center, oncology, infusion services and support services are all under one roof.”

Dr. Lowe serves on Torrance Memorial’s general and breast cancer tumor boards, meetings of multidis-ciplinary physicians and other providers representing the full spectrum of cancer care. The experts review new cases and formulate personally tailored care plans. In addition, Dr. Lowe and his partner, Andrew Horodner, MD, conduct lung cancer clinical trials to test new immunotherapies and targeted therapies.

Melody and Dr. Lowe have supported childhood cancer organizations throughout their 19-year marriage. Last year they joined the Ambassadors, a group committed to supporting Torrance Memorial’s mission, vision and values. Financial contributions provided by Ambassadors fund cardiovascular, cancer, neuroscience and orthopedic programs and services.

“When the pandemic hit, Torrance Memorial real-ly stepped up. In January we experienced the high-est number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital,” says Dr. Lowe. “Despite the hardships that created, patients were extremely well taken care of by the physicians, staff and administration. Philanthropy helped make that possible. You need philanthropy to be able to consistently provide excellent care, that is why we thought it was important to become

Ambassadors. We want to support the medical center, which in turn serves our whole community.”

Melody benefitted from philan-thropy as a child and sees joining the Ambassadors as a way to give back. “My parents couldn’t have afforded my treatments at City of Hope nor the summers I spent at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times,” she says. “Just as I was a beneficiary of gener-ous donors, I want to pay it forward by supporting the excellent care at Torrance Memorial.”

She also supports and has chaired events for Pediatric Therapy Network, which provides therapies and pro-grams for South Bay children with special needs. She and Dr. Lowe are longtime supporters of Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times. They worked as camp counselors as UC Irvine college students and for years afterward. More recently, the couple has hosted events in their home to raise funds for camp scholarships.

With her niece Gracelyn Bateman, Melody founded the Luna Peak Foundation. The nonprofit creates inspirational products for cancer sur-vivors and people dealing with grief. Their book, Beyond Remission: Words of Advice for Thriving, showcases

photographs of cancer survivors along with quotes about their experience.

“We want to give hope to people upon diagnosis,” says Melody. “We show there is life after cancer, and it can be a good life.”

“Starting treatment can be scary,” adds Dr. Lowe. “This book allows new patients to see people like themselves who have come out the other side.”

Luna Peak is currently compiling a new book, Snapshots of Life After Loss, which features portraits of those who have experienced grief holding an item representing their lost loved one. The book is slated for release next year.

When not involved in their professional endeavors, the couple enjoys spending time with their three sons, ages 15, 12 and 9. Melody was a collegiate swimmer, and the boys also participate in the sport. They also play basketball and water polo, and the family enjoys hiking. Their favorite activity, skiing in Mammoth, had to be postponed this year due to the pandemic.

Melody and Dr. Lowe seem to have passed their altruism to their offspring. Their youngest son recently announced to his class he wants to become a cancer doctor. •


Future Focus

GENEROSITY BY DESIGNCarol Wharton donates through her IRA in appreciation for her care.

For 30 years, Carol Wharton, now 79, had a thriving interior design business. Her clients were primarily homeowners on the Palos Verdes

Peninsula, where she has lived since 1965. Her clients benefited from her training with renowned antique dealers and experience with window displays, along with teaching design to others.

After a stroke in 2016, she needed a wheelchair and round-the-clock caregivers, but this didn’t dampen her optimism. “I feel safe in the wheelchair,” says Carol,

who now lives across the street from her daughter and son-in-law, Desiree and Jim Collings, in the Lunada Bay area of Palos Verdes Estates. “I would like to start a support group for other people in wheelchairs so they don’t feel like it’s the end of the world.”

She has extended that generosity of spirit to Torrance Memorial Medical Center because of the care she received at the hospital. In April 2019, Carol underwent emergency surgery to remove kidney stones and treat a severe infection. After seven days of recovery, she went home. A week later, she returned for follow-up outpatient surgery.

“Dr. [Garrett S.] Matsunaga saved my life,” Carol says of Torrance Memorial’s chief of urology who performed both surgeries. “His assistant was great too. And I really appreciated the respect, love and tender-ness they showed.”

Because of that experience, Carol says, she wanted to show her appreciation to Torrance Memorial by “mak-ing a gift from my heart.” Son-in-law Jim, a financial

Celebrating together at Holiday Festival 2019 are Carol Wharton, Jim and Desiree Collings and caregiver Celina Platon.


Future Focus

IRA BENEFICIARY DESIGNATIONS:

PER STIRPES VS. PER CAPITA … WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Beneficiary designations are required for 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), prof-it sharing, defined benefit, annuities and life insurance (all referenced as IRA for this article). Beneficiary designations are separate from and take precedence over the instructions in your will or trust. This allows for direct transfer to your named beneficiaries after you are gone.

An element not frequently discussed in beneficiary designation is the per stirpes vs. per capita distribution. This element comes into play if one of your named beneficiaries precedes you in death. Per stirpes would distribute that beneficiary’s share to his/her children in equal parts. Per capita would distribute the deceased beneficiary’s share equally among the remaining beneficiaries.

Consider this example: Jane inherited the IRA of her husband, John, when he passed away. She designated their two children (son and daughter) as 50% (equal) beneficiaries. Both of Jane’s children

are married and have two children. If Jane and her daughter are killed in a car accident, the per stirpes designation would distribute 50% of the IRA to her son and divide her deceased daugh-ter’s 50% equally between her two children. The per capita designation would distribute 100% of the IRA to Jane’s son since he is the only remaining beneficiary. The deceased daughter’s children would not receive her 50% share.

This simple add-on designation can have se-rious ramifications to your stated wishes if not

addressed properly. If you do not want your beneficiary distributions to be subject to the default option in place with your IRA custodian, or you do not know what is currently designated, it is advised that you review the beneficiary forms currently on file for per stirpes or per capita designations. Some beneficiary designation forms have checkboxes related to this, but others do not. Your estate attorney or financial advisor can help guide you through this process, or you can check directly with your IRA custodian and complete a new beneficiary designation form if needed. This may be the right time to update your beneficiary designation forms to ensure your wishes are followed after you are gone.

Gregory Schill, CFP®, is co-founder of The Advisory Group in Torrance. He is a member of Torrance Memorial’s Professional Advisory Council. Contact him at [email protected] or 310-536-7111.

IRA QCD:• Gift up to $100,000 annually from your IRA to

Torrance Memorial• Qualifies as your Required Minimum

Distribution (RMD)• Must be 70½ years of age• Donation must come directly to Torrance

Memorial from IRA administrator (check payable to Torrance Memorial Foundation)

• Do not have to include income on tax return which provides additional benefits in calcu-lations that use AGI (adjusted gross income) from tax return

• Become a member of Torrance Memorial Foundation’s Heritage Society which honors those who have included a gift in their estate plan (IRAs considered part of one’s estate plan)

planner and her advisor, recommended a donation through an IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD), also known as an IRA Charitable Rollover. Her gift of $500,000 was structured over three years partially in cash and partially through QCDs.

“When people reach 70½ years old, they are required to start taking distributions from their IRAs, on which they have to pay income taxes,” Jim explains. “Donating funds from her IRA allowed Carol to support a favorite charity, meet her required minimum distribution and avoid the income tax on the donated amount. The IRA QCD is a good estate planning tool with many tax benefits.”

Wharton, who has attended the hospital’s annual Holiday Festival gala many times over the years—sometimes accompanied by her daughter and son-in-law—has made other periodic gifts to the hospital. A grandmother of three and great-grandmother of six, she also takes pride in the recent donation of books by one of her grandchildren, Katie Nichol, and her foun-dation Cami’s Jammies. (See “Every Donation Counts” story on page 35.)

“When you’re near the end of life, you can have a positive or negative attitude,” says Carol, who looks for-ward sometime in the future to resuming an in-person Bible-study group, which she held at her house before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “I choose the positive. •


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YPPA PLAY-BY-PLAY:

PRACTICING WORK-LIFE BALANCEAngela Park Sheldon

WRITTEN BY LAURA ROE STEVENS

A ngela Park Sheldon is someone who seems to have it all—minus the anxiety most successful achievers live with. Words used

to describe Sheldon, who is a managing partner and wealth advisor for Tortuga Wealth Management, include business leader, adventure-seeker, traveler, mom, wife, philanthropist and “a happy camper with a keen sense of humor.” This last comment resonates with Sheldon, who strives daily to live without regrets.

“Oh yeah, I am a happy camper, literally and fig-uratively,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve done bungee jumping. I’ve climbed Mount Whitney. I’ve been all over the world: South America, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, Egypt, Dubai … you name it. We travel a lot and try to instill that love of travel in our kids. Our goal is to get to at least half—or all 50—states before they graduate.”

With a six-year-old and an eight-year-old, Sheldon and her husband, Hank, have 10 years to achieve that goal. But she isn’t daunted. So how does this dynamic busi-nesswoman, mom and even Girl Scout leader juggle it all?

“It’s all about balance. You have to save for tomorrow, but you also have to live for today,” Sheldon explains. “It’s all about work-life balance because tomorrow is not guaranteed. I don’t want any regrets.“

We spoke over the phone while Sheldon was in Idaho on a family vacation. In the morning, while her two children, Zeke and Eliana, were attending Zoom school, she worked. In the afternoons, the family enjoyed the snow, taking time to ski, snowboard, hike and sled.

“In spite of the pandemic, we still live our lives in a way that makes sense for us,” she says. During our conversation, her youngest had a bit of trouble with his

Zoom classroom assignment, so Sheldon stepped away to help. I got to see firsthand her quick juggling abilities and calm demeanor.

“Mrs. Webb, Zeke is lost about what he should be do-ing. What is the next activity I need to prepare for him?”

After sorting it out for her six-year-old, Sheldon came back to the phone chuckling and talking again about the importance of balance. Her advice to all women juggling work demands and at-home Zoom kids is this: work out!

“I work out every single day. The first thing I do each morning is work out. And I do yoga every week. It’s what keeps me sane.”

Sheldon has also made philanthropy a priority. She is a founding—and still active—member of the Torrance Memorial Young Physicians and Professionals Alliance (YPPA). She says the beauty of the YPPA is how it brings together community and business leaders with physicians to have fun, network, and give back.

The YPPA is now nine-years young and growing strong. Besides the ability to give back to the commu-nity and strengthen the hospital’s programs, Sheldon says the biggest benefit of being a member is making friends. YPPA members are finding creative ways to stay connected during the pandemic. From sunny beach cleanups to virtual trivia happy hours, members socialize, network and continue to raise funds to support the hospital and community health.

“The people you’re going to meet, whether physi-cians or professionals, are outstanding. Our members are excellent in their fields of practice. And clearly, this organization helps us continue to keep a top-notch hos-pital in our own backyard. In order to continue to keep this level of excellence, you need to be involved.” •

Below: It’s all about a work-life balance. The Sheldon family enjoys time on a Disney cruise.

The Sheldon Family: Zeke, Angela, Hank and Eliana


Every Donation Counts

COVID-19 units night shift staff received donated meals of salad, chicken pasta primavera, bread and cookie after the Thanksgiving holiday.

THANKSGIVING MEALS AND MORE!

As Jessica Sapadin of Manhattan Beach started planning for her family’s Thanksgiving celebration, she thought about all the dedicated health care workers at Torrance Memorial and wanted to show her gratitude. She rallied her friends and family with response from 32 who collectively donated $3,486! This generosity provided a free meal at Yang Café for 275 staff, physicians and volunteers working on Thanksgiving. Additionally, the night shift staff caring for COVID-19 patients on three units received a meal the following week.

HELPING TINY BABIES: TRISHA AND DAMIAN HANUDEL

Damian, age 6, wanted to find a way to help the tiny babies in the hospital. So with the help of his mom, he made a pledge to the Torrance Memorial Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to donate $250 for four years to meet his own goal of $1,000. Thank you, Damian and Trisha, for helping our tiny babies and inspiring others to give back.


Every Donation Counts

GIVING TUESDAYGiving Tuesday was created in 2012 as a simple

idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, it has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate and celebrate generos-ity. Last year on Tuesday, December 1, Torrance Memorial received $11,232 in donations to support the Lundquist Lurie Cardiovascular Institute.

CAMI’S JAMMIES BOOK DONATION

Founded in memory of little Cameron “Cami” Nichol, who at age 18 months lost her battle with sepsis on Christmas Eve 2016, Cami’s Jammies aims to bless critically ill children, their siblings and parents with messages of comfort and joy. Cami was a patient at Torrance Memorial before transferring to the critical care unit of Miller Children’s Hospital. Her parents, Katie and Chris Nichol, are forever grateful for the excellent care she received here. Through a special fundraising effort, Cami’s Jammies partnered with Usborne Books to bless Torrance Memorial’s pediatric patients with nearly 400 children’s books in December 2020.

Child life specialist Gina Sievert and NICU/pediatrics nurse manager Elizabeth Lowerison receive a portion of the donated books.


In Your Community

HOLIDAY FESTIVAL Even though we didn’t have the “big white tent”

this year, friends, family and the community found a way to celebrate, participate and support Torrance Memorial, raising more than $1.1 million. The virtual Gala and Live Auction took place on Friday, December 4 with master of ceremonies and auc-tioneer Fritz Coleman raising $675,500 in donations from live auction bids and gifts from the heart. The winner of the opportunity drawing of the 2021 Toyota Venza Hybrid XLE was Michele Alarcon.

Fritz Coleman, Craig Leach

Song Klein, Dave Klein Marilyn MacLeod, Helaine LopesBehind the scenes at command central: James Stewart, Brian Sheil, Tyler Davis

Fritz Coleman

Carole Hoffman Ian MacLeod


In Your Community

Kevin Theodora, Joy Theodora

Steve Alarcon, Michele Alarcon

Zoom screenshots from the Holiday Festival Virtual Gala

Virtual gala hosts Judith Gassner and Laura Schenasi


In Your Community

HOLIDAY TREESTwenty-two beautifully decorated trees were

set up in the Hoffman Health Conference Center and available for auction, raising $30,650. A holiday favorite from Dr. Seuss, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was a popular live auction tree, won by Regina and Dan Finnegan. This whimsical tree had the Grinch standing nearby wishing you a very “Merry Grinch’mas!”

New in 2020 was the Heroes Tree, a 12-foot, beautifully decorated tree displayed in the Grand Lobby of the Lundquist Tower. Many heroes were honored, from physicians, nurses, staff members and departments to patients, first responders and community members. Donation levels ranged from $100 to $10,000 and raised an overwhelming $25,675.

1. Terry Gonzales 2. Heroes Tree detail 3. Emily Wickline, Ginny Frazier 4. Bobbie Diekmann, Veronica Duarte 5. Heroes Tree installation – Top: Michelle Rand, Celeste Crandell; Bottom: Janice Petrosino, Terry Gonzales, Terry Furey, Shirley Hall, Emily Wickline 6. Heroes Tree

1

2

3 4

5 6


In Your Community

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EVENTS

Holiday Story Contest – People of all ages were invited to submit their original holiday story, and the eight winning stories were read “Live from the North Pole” by Santa. The authors received a $50 Amazon gift card.

Gingerbread House Decorating – For a donation of $100, a gingerbread house kit from Torrance Bakery was cleverly decorated and the winners by category are pictured in 1,3 and 4.

Pop-up Boutiques – In lieu of the Festival tent, pop-up holiday boutique shops were stationed outside the hospital cafés. Las Amigas volunteers assisted staff and physicians with their holiday shopping.

1

2

3 4 5

1. Judges’ Choice winner “Holiday by the Sea” by Noel Hubbard 2. Santa Claus aka Mayor Patrick Furey 3. South Bay’s Best Curb Appeal winner “Surfing Santa’s Beach Hut” by Elisa Anhalt, MD 4. Most Creative winner by Reanna Kiyomura and Jessica Weishar 5. Dede King, Jean O’Dell


In Your Community

VACCINATION CLINICSTorrance Memorial celebrated the arrival of the first

doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 9. “Receiving the COVID-19 vaccine to protect our frontline health care clinicians and staff is an incredible devel-opment in the fight against the pandemic,” says Craig Leach, CEO of Torrance Memorial. Following Los Angeles Department of Public Health guidelines, clinics continue to open to eligible populations like seniors 65+ and residents of Los Angeles County.

11

2

3 4 5

6 7 8

1. Steve Thompson, director of pharmacy inspects the arrival of the vaccine. 2. Members of the press cover the first day of the vaccine clinic, December 19. 3. Director of employee health services Chris Bacon, RN. 4. Carole Hoffman and Yun Park, a nursing student at El Camino College. 5. Naiwei Hsu, RN, Burn ICU. 6. Marilyn MacLeod and Geraldine Condor, nursing student at El Camino College. 7. Mimi Liu. 8. Priscilla Hunt and Fahmda Ahmed, nursing student at El Camino College.


Supporters

$1,000,000+

Melanie and Richard Lundquist

Victoria Nishioka Trust

$500,000+

Ruth Anne Pearce and Allen Alpay

Priscilla Hunt

Hang Up and Michelle Moon

Norris Foundation

Patricia and Gerald Turpanjian

$200,000+

Henry and Jessica Chen

Gerald and Leola Cork Trust

Laura and Joe Gregorio

Mary Kehrl

Allison and Rick Mayer

Deana Buechel and Greg Mayer

Carol and James McKay

Jeffrey and Tiffany Neu

Serena and John Ngan

Mimi O’Hern

Ellen and Pat Theodora

Carol A. Wharton

$100,000+

Betty and Jake Belin

Barbara and David Bentley

Myrna Frame

Torrance Memorial Auxiliary

$50,000+

Tracey and Ronald Cloud

Dorothy and Larry Delpit

Sheri and Casey Dodge

Cynthia and Joe Giacomin

Ellena and Joshua Greenberg

May Hu

Robert Koch

Caren and Jordan Libit

Carol and Karl McMillen

Richard Meyer, DDS

Oarsmen Foundation

Serena and John Padian

Lavonne Rodstein

Beatrice Sheng

Lee-Li-De and Erh-Mei Su

Jean S. Wong

Dora and Paul Zhang

$30,000+

Peggy and Wayne Bemis, DDS

Laurie and John Bucher

Portia and Andrew Cohen

Farima and Joseph Czyzyk

Karla Burns and Brett Dillenberg

Employee Ambassador Program

Noelle and Paul Giuliano

Joanna and Paul Giuliano

Ronnie and Alan Goldstein

Robert Y. Greenberg

Lisa and Lowell Hill

Carole Hoffman

Howmet Aerospace Foundation

Karen and Christopher Hutchison

Darius Irani

Stuart C. Kern

Steven Koch

Laura Lamping and Thomas Pawlak

Lisa and Greg Levine

Warren Lichtenstein

Christie and John Mavredakis

TORRANCE MEMORIAL WOULD LIKE TO GIVE A SPECIAL THANKS

TO OUR MANY SPONSORSGifts from Sept. 1, 2020 - Feb. 28, 2021

The Yang Family – Frank, Sandy, Tatum, Jordan vacationing on Lanai, Hawaii

Lynn and David McGowan

Colleen and James McKinnell, MD

Elizabeth and William Messori

Montessori Educational

Foundation of the South Bay -

Judy and John Ernst

Linda and John Muckel

Nina Ritter and Robert Mullarkey

Ellen and Mike Rosenberg

Judith and Sherrill Sipes

Srisamon and Peter Tansavatdi

Jan and Ian Teague

Deborah and Tom Thomas

Cengiz Volkan


Supporters

$25,000+

Anonymous Donor

Peggy and Robert Dowell

Ofelia and Emmanuel David,

Heritage Rehabilitation Center

Lori and Tom O’Hern

Janice and Timur Tecimur

Torrance Memorial Medical Staff

$15,000+

Christy and Jay Abraham

Ayne and Jack Baker

Oi-Lin and Tei-Fu Chen

Michele and Robert Christensen

Patricia and David Hempel

Timothy Keenan

Keenan Healthcare

Song and David Klein

Lisa and Chuck Noski

Lore and Marv Patrick

Larry K. Prutch

Linda and Lee Rosen

Elaine Scott

$10,000+

Sigrid and Ralph Allman

Nadine and Ty Bobit

Diana Cutler

Jackie and Greg Geiger

Nan and Reed Harman

Eve and Rick Higgins

Judy and Parnelli Jones

Norm Koutek

Connie and Jeff Lai, MD

Patricia and Harold Lund, MD

Janis Adams and John Lyons

Marilyn and Ian MacLeod

Carol and Gerry Marcil

Sandii and Lee Minshull

Diane and Davis Moore

Ann Marie and Michael Morris

Twanna and Tim Rogers

Kirsten Wagner, DDS and

Richard Rounsavelle, DDS

Patricia Sacks, MD

George C. and Roselle Shaw Trust

Kay and Sam Sheth

Ann and Gary Zimmerman

$5,000+

Valerie and Chris Adlam

Timothy and Sandra Armour

Baker, Burton & Lundy Law Offices

Jean Breedlove

James P. Burt

California Subshine II, Inc.,

Torrance (Jersey Mike’s)

Susan and David Chan, MD

Kathleen Crane and Milan Smith

Randy and Luke Dauchot

EMCOR Service/Mesa

Energy Systems

Thyra Endicott, MD and

Jonathan Chute

William and Dorothy Farris

Regina and Dan Finnegan

Good Community Church

of Torrance

Shanna and Jack Hall

Diana and Van Honeycutt

Peter Johnson

Ronna Katz

Paula and Arthur Kozinski

Soojie Kuroda

Kim and Rick Leacock

Charlotte and Russ Lesser

Patricia and Richard Lucy

Barbara Demming Lurie and

Mark Lurie, MD

Dianne and Ned Mansour

Melaine Dee, MD and

Garrett Matsunaga, MD

Lisa Humphreys, MD and

John McNamara, MD

Sunny Melendez, MD and

Ron Melendez, MD

Eric and Anna Mellor, MD

Catherine Melton

Jacquelyne and Steven Miller

Pacific National Group

Michelle and David Rand, MD

Celia and Robert Rothman

Sandra Sanders

Laura and Marc Schenasi

John Sealy, MD

Phyllis and Steven Spierer

Thelma and Phil Steinberg

Torrance Anesthesia Medical

Group, Inc.

Torrance Pathology Group

Torrance Radiology Medical Group

Kathleen Whiting

Mary and Steve Wright

$2,500+

James Andrews

Anonymous Donors

Association of South Bay Surgeons

Marc Benson

Berg Family Foundation

Ann and David Buxton

Robin Camrin

Joan Caras

Patricia and Dick Carlson

Bryan Chang, MD

Pam Crane

Ruth and Harv Daniels

Ruth and Jim DeFlavio

Juli and Michael DiLustro

Donna and R. Stephen Doan

Sally and Mike Eberhard

Cami and Donald Evans

Patricia and Paul Francis

Melanie Friedlander, MD

Judith Gassner

Marnie and Dan Gruen

Joseph and Terry Hohm

Internal Medicine & Nephrology

Medical Group, Inc.

Judy and Craig Leach

Stanley Levine

Laurie and Thomas McCarthy

Evi and David Meyer

Izzat Alamdari and

Eric Milefchik, MD

Roxanne and

Ramin Mirhashemi, MD

Maureen and Mario Palladini

Paul’s Photo, Inc.

Michele and Robert Poletti

Project Worldwide

RCL Foundation

Adele Ruxton

Pam and James Sattler, MD

Allyson and Alexander Shen, MD

Laura and Tom Simko, MD

Erin and Andrew Sloves

Debra and Jerry Soldner

Helen and Pasquale Theodora

Joy and Kevin Theodora

Torrance Emergency Physicians

Torrance Memorial Neonatology

Nancy Weisel

Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC

Dwight and Kay Yamada

YPPA of Torrance Memorial

Frances and Stanley Zee

$1,000+

Frank Y. An, MD

Elisa Anhalt, MD and

Douglas Laurin

Heidi Assigal and Gerhard Eberhart

Kathleen and Randy Avakian

Michele and William Averill, MD

Peggy and Cliff Berwald

Stephanie and Brian Bezner

Angelie and John D. Blakey, MD

Mary Bradfield-Smith

Trudy Brown

Rodica and Paul Burg

c/a Architects

Linda and Zan Calhoun

Judy Nei and Vinh Cam, MD

Linda Campanale

Cindy and Paul Campbell

Robin Camrin

Jim and Julie Chen

Chivaroli & Associates

Philip W. Chung, MD and

Lauren Choi, MD

Sandy and Thomas Cobb

Kathy and Paul Cohen

Desiree and Jim Collings

Francine and Phillip Cook

Peter Croke

Donald Culler

Norman Davies

Alyson Decker

Edith Dees

Wayne Dempsey

Cindy and Steven Dennis

Manjri and Rajendra Dhami

Digestive Care Consultants

Medical Group


Supporters

Susan Dilamarter

Marcia Ding, MD and

James Ding, MD

Diane Liebenson and

Thomas Duralde, MD

Anna Eakins

Angela and Dean Furkioti, DDS

George & Reva

Graziadio Foundation

Mary Giordano and Jim Specht

Albert Grabb, MD

Graystone Consulting,

Morgan Stanley

Christine and Alek Haidos

Shahina Hakim, MD and

Hammad Zaidi

Donna Marie and

Eugene Hardin, MD

George C. Hartmann Jr.

Anthony Hatfield

Donna Helstrom

Erika and Jeffrey Hill

Agi Hirshberg

Mike Ho, MD

Bruce Hoerning

Erin and Heidi Hoffman, MD

Jenn and Brandon Hohm

Daniel R. Hovenstine, MD

James & Gable Insurance Brokers

Katherine and Kirk Johnson

John Johnson, MD

Bill Kaira

Loretta and Art Kaiser, DDS

Debra and Russell Kelley

Valerie and Edward Kelly

Vince Kelly

Lynn Kim

Kinecta Federal Credit Union

Koi Design LLC

kpff Consulting Engineers

Jon Kragh

Sherry and Ian Kramer, MD

Patricia Kromka

Christina and George Legg

Linda and David Lillington

Lomita Post-Acute Care Center

Helaine and Steve Lopes

Melody and Thomas Lowe, MD

Luminaries of Torrance Memorial

McCarthy Building Companies

Kak and David McKinnie

Mary Ann and E.L. Merritt

Myron and Luise Miller

Brian Miura, MD

Cynthia and David Moore

Eduard E. Morf

Georgine Morita

Morrow-Meadows Corp

Joanne and Marc Moser

Karen and Gene Naftulin, MD

Nancy and Steve Novokmet

Warren Oda

Corinne and Randy O’Hara, MD

Robin and Norman Panitch, MD

Payden & Rygel

Patricia and John Peterson

Heather and John Polk

Leslie and Todd Powley

Karen Pryor - Pryority

Lending Group

Linda Pullen-Buehl

Rose Anne and Jerry Redman

William Rehrig

Bernie and Timothy Reid

Rhea and Patrick Rendon

Mary and Timothy Richardson

Janet Richardson

Tamara Ritchey Powers

Kelly and Chris Rogers

Nancy and Michael Rouse

Lynn and Dirk Ruffin, MD

Kim and Michael Ryan

Diane and Eric Schott

Marge Schugt

Marlene Schultz, DDS and

Philip Walent

Madeline and Alex Schumacher

Phyllis and René Scribe

Connie Senner

Pantea Sharifi-Hannauer, MD

JoAnn and Kemper Shaw

Julie and Nick Silvino, MD

Fay and Mitchell Sklar, MD

Christine and Scott Smith

Carolyn Snyder

Jackelyn Lee MD and

George So, MD

South Bay Gastroenterology

Medical Group

South Bay Mommies & Daddies

Spierer, Woodward,

Corbalis & Goldberg

Robert Stephenson

Bert Stewart

Rose Straub

Cathrine and Carlo Tabellario

William Tarng, MD

The Chadmar Group

Triton Pacific Construction Group

Phila and Louie Tuccinardi

Carolyn and Charles Turek, MD

Cynthia and Arthur Tuverson

Mary Jo and Jerome Unatin, MD

Karen Varon

Terri and Dennis Cammarano

Kanji and Grace Watanabe

Susan and Wade Welch

Brigid and James Wethe, MD

Susan and Matthew Whelan

Kathy and David Willock

Peter and Monica Wong

Sandy and Frank Yang

Harry Yoshikawa

$500+

Michelle Abraham

Nancy Agustin

Michelle Ahnn

Lesley Aitchison

Kristin Andrade, MD

Nadia Antii

Melanie and Benjamin Archer

Alejandra Arredondo

Jim Baghramian

Elizabeth Bailey

Daniel Bauman

Lenore Bemis

Beti and Christopher Bergman

Kevin Bidenkap

Lance Bommelje

Bonny and Al Botello

Danielle Boujikian

Kathryn Braasch

Diana and George Brandt

Elena and Larry Bruns

Joy Burkhardt

Keith Burwell

Agnes Butardo

Lauren and Benjamin Carroll, MD

Michael Caulfield

Yvonne Chavez

Young and Christy Cheng

Nancy Peterson and Dick Chun

Alan Chung

Donna and Michael Ciminera

Mei and Bill Collier

Cheryl and Stephen Connors

Patricia Croce

Anne Crofut-Rhilinger

Phil Cutler

Ittie and Warren Cutting

Teri Dart

Maureen and Tim Dearden

Sara and Omer Deen, MD

John and Nora Devine

Juan Diaz

Vanessa Dickey, MD

Janis Dickson

Alice Diego-Malit, MD and Earl Malit

Scott J. Donnelly

Patricia Drew

Diane Dumond

Edward Jones, Bryan Hori

Josephine Espejo

Mary E. Espinoza

Don F. Estrada

Facebook Donors

Justin Ficke

Kacey and Vince Fierro

Erin Fiorito

Farnaz and Lawrence Flechner, MD

Mary J. Ford

LeRoy Forehand

Judith and Robert Frinier

Juan Frisancho, MD

Denise and Roy Fu, MD

Doris Garber

Debbi and Moe Gelbart, PhD

Tammy Ginder

Debra and Damien Goldberg, MD

Irene Goldman

Herna Gonzalez

Teresa Gordon

Gale Gould

Nancy and Bob Gragg


Supporters

Scott Cho - Hank’s Auto

Hansen Seto Keesey LLP,

and Debbie Keesey

Jeremiah Hargrave

Eric Harris

Lynne and Jim Held

Mona Hernandez

Tim Hersey

Beth and Erik Higgins

Kitty and Al Hill

Mary Hoffman and Bob Habel

Linda Howard

David Hozaki

Naiwei Hsu-Chang

Lesley and Colin Hull

Barbara Ignacio

Carolyn Y. Ito

Sandy and Karl Jackson

Alexis and Peter Jensen

Michael Johnson

Margaret Johnston

Mona and Derrick Kawamoto

Veronica and Jeff Kern

Anne Kienberger

Dennis Kikuno

David S. Kim, MD

Rev. James Kim

Lucy Kimball

Arlene and Michael Klosk

Steve Kostrencich

Yukiko and John Kuno

Sandra Langhammer

Steve Lantz

Jacqueline and Joe Leimbach

Martha and David Leveille, MD

Kathy Levy

Kenneth Libkin

Kathleen Liverpool

Laurie and Steve Love

Elizabeth M. Lowerison

Angela Luna

Eva Sohia and Fernando Magdaleno

Cynthia Manson

Wei Q. Mao

Joan Mastick

Nancy Mateyka

Mary and David Matson

Donna McNeely

Elaine McRae

Mary and Gus Meier

Maria L. Mendoza

Melany Merryman

MHP Structural Engineers

Caro and John Miguelez

Erik Milanez

Cindy and Lawrence Miller

Rene Miller

Marian Mills

David Miyoshi

Margaret and Chris Moggia

Ann and Daniel Mueller

Murray Company

Cassandra Ndiforchu, MD and

Fombe Ndiforchu, MD

Tami Nakama

Allisha and Edward Nazareth

Sophia and Philippe Neveu

Young Oh

Melanie R. O’Regan

Mary E. Osborne

Ronald Padilla

Sarina Pai, DO

Lorena M. Pascual

Paypal Charitable Giving Fund

QuinStar Technology, Inc.

Susan Quenga

Ann Raljevich

Karen Randazzo

Bernie Reid

David and Yoshiko Rock

Maggie Rodriguez

Addie and Sam Rodriguez

Leah Romine

Kathy and Romolo Santarosa

Abraham A. Santiago Jr.

Catherine Sarcona

Maria Sass-Goldstein and

Jared Goldstein

Gregory Schill

Krista and F. Thomas Schlappatha

Arthur and Linda Schultz

Jane Semel, MD

Heather Shay

LaDonna Shea

Angela and Hank Sheldon

Dorothy Shen

Pam and Brian Sherman, MD

Trudy Smith

Sophie and Arnaud Solandt

Karen and Will Somers, Jr.

Rhoda Soto

South Bay Alumnae of Alpha Phi

Erin and Paul Stanley

Michael Steele

Frederick Stevens

James Stevens

Gina Sulmeyer, MD and

Michael Arriola

Nancy and Larry Takahashi

Anne Taylor

Julie and Bruce Taylor

Sylvia Thompson

Natalie and Dave Thorpe

Shelly Trites

Shiela and Mark Tsujimoto

Cynthia and Kazuaki Uemura

Veronica Urbano

Sandy VandenBerge

Brandy Van Zitter

Abby and Bill Waddell

Theresa M. Ware

Patrick Wecker

Mary and Steven Wheatley

Betty Wilber

Shannon Williams

Diane Wingerning

Arnie Wolfson

Curtice Wong, MD

Sean Yokoe

Joanne Yoshida

Ellen and George Zelinsky

$250+

Sandra Allen

Mary Ann J. Alvarez

Gwendolyn Bailey

Cecilia L. Banania

Irene Bayan

Andrea Bedford

Mary Binns

Lisa Briedis

Mimi Brody

Elizabeth Burkhalter

Loreta Camiling

Zenaida Carrillo-Ramo

Susan Castillo

Ming Chang

Changrong and Y Cheng

Heidi Chong

Sallie and Thom Cintron

Fern and Martin Cohen

Anna Conway

Danielle Cosgrove

William Culp

Jeanette Cutuli

Michelle Dahle

Kristen Damon

Sandra E. Daos

James Dougher, MD

Carla Duhovic

Dunn & Associates

Maria Eclevia

Elaine Eguchi

Cheryl Ely

Marissa Farol

Carlos Fernandez

Jeannine and Dennis Frandsen

Tom Frew

Tami Garcia

Alfrenda O. Gonzales

Mary and Gary Gordon

Green Hills Mortuary

Denise and Dennis Groat

Suzanne and Paul Grudnitski

Kathleen Hagemeier

Patricia Hanudel

Judith Hassoldt

Vickie Hershberger

Debbie Hoagland

Home Medix, Inc.

Maria Hovsepian

Rosario Jarquin

Mary Rose and Thomas Jeffry

Rena Johnson

Deborah and JP Jones

Changkyun Micha Kim

Kay and William Kim, MD

Gail Klass

Susan Koch

Melissa Koskinen

Julie A. Krueger

John Kumashiro

Bonny and Albert Lam, MD

Charlotte Lazar-Morrison

Barbara and Barry Lequire

Patricia Leonard


Supporters

Eliwyn T. Liptzin

Esther Lopez

Maricarmen Luhrsen

Shirley R. Maderazo

Vicky and Winston Mar

Jonathan Marshall

Patrick Matteo

Anne McCormick

Marguerite McCormick

Pamela Michael

Nancy C. Milliren

Mobile Heartbeat

Glenda M. Moore

Sara and Ryan Moore

Scott Morita Family and Friends

Nancy Mukai

Robert Murphy

Gina and Fred Nader

Edward and Allisha Nazareth

William Oberholzer

Patricia and Kenneth Ochi

Martha D. Ortiz

Esther Ovadia

Doris A. Paloma

Jacqueline Parker-Johnson

Rosalie and Chirag Patel, MD

Patricia Pearce

Tania and Ryan Peterson

Howard Pfahler

Vilma Plagata

Zenaida Poquiz

Faye and Armando Ramos

William Scott Rees, DDS

Deborah Reyes

Lorena Reynoso

Lori and Ray Richard

Riviera Garden Club

Linda and John Roehm

Anthony Romero

Terry Runzler

Rosalee Saikley and Joe Murray

Andrea and Jim Sala

Arceli Salanguit

Stephanie L. Schmid

Rebecca and Barry Schulman

Debra Seal, MD

Jennifer Shafer

Cindy Shirai

Cathy and Alan Siegel

Leilani Small

K. A. Snakenborg

Drs. Aileen Takahashi and Charles

Spenler

Edna Steel

Linda Sturm

Aiko and Walter Sumi

Ruth Sve

Wynne Torqueza

Faith and Bruce Trotman

Mei and Steve Tsai

Dianna Tyndall

Maria V. Valdivia

Karen J. Watkins

Maria E. White

Dianne Wood

Lori A. Woodman

Cathi and R. Michael Wyman, MD

Doreen Yonemura

Carla and Walter Zanino

Susie Zimmerman

$100+

Susan Abelson

Ellen Adams

Susie Adams

Cindy and Alan Adams

Maria Theresa Aguilera

Modupe Aiyegbusi

Tomoko Akazawa

Kamy Akhavan

Kathleen M. Akstens

Michele and Steve Alarcon

Georgina Albi

John Alden

Bibi Ali

Nicole Alexander Spencer, MD

Gail and Doug Allen

Ellen Allen-Wainwright

Mei and Ken Amano

Arthur Amasaki

AmazonSmile Foundation

Sandra Anderson

Melissa Andrus

Lourdes and Jaime Antonio

Oliva Arcala

Karen and Bob Armstrong

Maria Arroyo

Maria Arteaga

Barbara Asada

Jose A. Asis

Jean and Don Aston

Lydia L. Atienza

Sheryl Y. Au

Avago Technologies U.S. Inc.

Sara K. Avakian

Ralph Avakian

Damira and Milo Bacic

Michael Balaban

Sara Baldos

Cynthia Bandy

Lisa Bargar

Bret Barrett

Sally Bates

Martha and John Bauman

Suzanne Beehler

Richard Bell

Nancy and Everett Bender

Melissa Benoit

Joann and John Best

Carleen Beste

Vijay and Sharda Bhasin

Printmol Biju

Michael Black

Karen and Michael Bleier

Lee Bogan

Carolyn Bohm

Kristin and Alex Borden

Maricela Bordenave

Ruth V. Borges

Kathleen Secan

Sandra Branigan

Nancy Brennan

Danielle and Shane Breski

Esther and Lynn Bridgman

Sharon and David Broadbent

Betty Broughton

Mary and Larry Bryant

Donna and James Bunn

Margaret Burns

Heather Burt-Legg

Maria Buyser

Dinah Cabalatungan

Sonia and Eulogio Cabotaje

Alida and Stevan Calvillo

Edna Campbell

Elaine and Albert Castillon

Neil Castrence

Rosalinda Catamisan

Carol Celentano

Catherine Chambliss

Elaine Chang

Julie Che Potter and Josh Potter

Lillian and Thomas Cheng

Lilian and Patrick Chik

Irene and Nick Chipeska

Hsin Hui Chiu

Jeanne and Albert Chou

Marcia Christensen

Lisa Chu

Kevin C. Clark

Cynthia Cohen

Penny and Michael V. Colgrove

Helen Connelly

Vanessa Correa

Coral Cortez

Dianne Cota

Celeste Crandell

Marcia Creighton

Phyllis and Joseph Cronin

Carolyn Cruz

Michele Cruz

Joanne and Albert D’Amico

Mina Dastgheib

Janice Dautremont

Nancy Davis

Leslie DeGeorge

Geraldine De La Cruz

Dennene and William Delaney

Daniel Delp

Jayantha and Parin Demel

Priscilla Derieg

Joseph DiLeva

Charles Dodd

Margaret Doran

Marina DSouza

Marilyn K. Dubas

Barbie and Mark Duda

Mary Eddy

Juliana Enge

Ana Maria Espejo

Karen Ezell

Marissa Farol

Todd Felker

Debbie Geering-Fend, DO and

Helmut Fend

Veon and Andrew Filak


Supporters

Judith and Robert Fisher

Kristen Flagler

Patricia and James Flanigan

Shirley and Fred Floresca

Lara Flynn

Darlene and Paul Foley

Kristin Foord

Thomas Fox

Stephanie Fujii

Carol Fukuchi

Terry and Mayor Pat Furey

Sidney Gamber

Dina and John Gample

Maribel Garcia

Joseph Gerber

Mark Gittler, MD

Jill Golden

Mary Goodloe

Ann Gotthoffer and Cedrick McRae

Zorayda Gozun

Julie Greenwald

Karen Guerrero

Cathleen Guthrie

Cheryl and Hector Gutierrez

Carol Hahn

Rosalind Halikis

Mark Hamilton

Barbara Haney

Christine Hanson

Jennifer and Mike Hardin

Steve Hasson

Carla Hatler

Mary Lou and William Hayden

Julie and Richard Haynes

Matthew Hecht

Jacqueline Hemmah

Richard Henke, MD

Diana and Patrick Henry

Abraham Hepner

Susan and Ernesto Hernandez

Bruce A. Hershberger

Nathan Higashigawa

Horace Higgins

Mary and William Hileman

Betty Hill

Sanh Ho

Col. and Mrs. William B. Hoenig Jr.

Cam Hong

Michael Hope

Galena Miller-Horii and

Dwayne Horii

Suellen G. Hosino

Noel Hubbard

Corazon and Frederick Huelar

Lisa Hughes

Rene and Stanton Hunton

Lindsay and Peter Imwalle

Gordon Ing

Tracy Isenberg

Valerie Ishihara

Alicia Jacobsen

Reynaldo Jaojoco

Bonnie Jewell

Joyce and Rudy Jimenez

Kathleen and Davin Johnson

Paul Jones

Linda Just

Leanne Justiss

Frank Kane

Ayda and Arto Karakas

Florence Kawamata

Sarah Kelly

Sylvia and Gregory G. Kennedy

Peter Kenney

Pam and Gerry Kenoyer

Cynthia Keus

Freda Khan

Gracetta Kidd

Changkyun Micha Kim

Jennifer Kim

Lisa Kiyohara

Reanna Kiyomura

Gwen Knapp

Gaile and Gene Koecheler

Harold Koletsky

Kimberley Koontz

Lynda Kraemer

Chance Krutsinger

Wen and William Kuo

Debbie Landes

Mary Jane Landrock

Joseph Lanphen

Patricia and Gerald Lanphen

Jennifer Larson

Mary Lawler

Judy G. Lebrillo

June Leach

Nancy and Allyn Lean

Eunice Lee

Ling and Edward Lee

Chi Leung

Mary Jane and Nolan Lew

Catherine Leys

Laura Licea

Carolyn Lininger

Jamie K. Lipson

Christopher Locke

Jennifer Lona-Jones

Gail and Rick Long

Martha and Richard Lopez

Janet and Eric Louie

Kay and Paul Lupo

Mary Malone

Kristy and Eric Maniaci

Patricia Mann

Elizabeth Marquez

Mary and Raymond Martin

Bernice and Chelsea Marx

Carole Mason

Peggy Masutani and

Winston Jeong

Iona Matson

Sanae Matsukawa

Debra Mauser

Dorothy Mayer

Kimcee McAnally

Ryan McCormick

Marguerite McCormick

Jackie and John McGovern

Donna McLaughlin

Enid and Alexander McRobert

Rita and Joe Meistrell

Maria Mendoza

Rene Mendoza

Jack Messerlian

Cesar Michel

Doris and Mick Miguelez

Ioana Mihalache

Terry Miller

Lisa Miller-Diaz

Barbara Minami

Lauren Mitchell

Arun Mittal

Rosalyn Modeliste

Kathy and Chuck Moine

Sally Moite

Brenda Moore

Steven Morenberg

Patty Mortl

Jane Mosher-Canty

Harriet Mizuno-Moyer and

Stanford Moyer

Robert Mullikin

Ken Murakami

Paul Murata, MD

Patricia and Larry Murphy

George and Florence Nakakura

Suzuyo Nakamura and Isamu

Kurahashi

Lisa and Eric Nakkim, MD

Marissa Nera

Teresa and Thomas Noone

Dennis J. Noor

Cristina O’Brien

John O’Brien

Nobuko and Tomiaki Okada

Scott Okazaki

Linda Oliver

Sheila S. O’Neill

Therese Oswald

Lisa Pack

Anita Padgett

Michele Palombo

Wendy Pangindian

Laureen and Michael Paolozzi

Winston Pascual

Donna Patch

Jennifer Patten

Jaquelina Patti

Stephanie Paul

Sharon and Joseph Payne

Fred and Ann Peitzman

Phyllis Pelezzare

Patricia Perez

Rick and Dana Perius

Carolyn and Greg Peterson

Kelvin Pham

David Phung

Dorothy Piurkowsky

Karol and Bob Plocky

Mary and Anthony Podell

Beata Ponder

Steve Porter

Gigi C. Portugal

Paul Pourzia


Supporters

David Z. Presser, MD and

Michelle A. Finkel, MD

Karen Provin

Christopher Prystalski

Valerie Punzal

Dorine Queener

Ronald Radcliffe

Sherry L. Rafters

Terry Lewis Ragins and

Mark Ragins

Linda and Allan Rahn

Christopher Rama

Denzil Ramdhanie

Frank Ramogida

Jason Rath

Melanie Real

Harry Reeves

Gene Rerat

Susan and Dean Reuter

Deborah and Rolando Reyes

Tyson R. Reyes

Kimberly Rhodes

Aloisia and Alfons Ribitsch

Carlene Ringer

Richard Rivera

Gerald Robinson

Magdalena Rodriguez

Virgilio Rojales

Peggy and Lewis Roland

Joanne and Michael Romanelli

Hilda Rondeau

Laura and James Rosenwald

Mary Rubin

Sandra and Guy Ruckdaschel

Dottie and Vince Rudinica

Irene and Edmond Russ

Kathleen and James Ryel

Ana Salinas

Angela and Isabelo Salva

Eliana Sanchez

Gerard Sandot

Jessica Glenn Sapadin

John Scavarda

Pamela and Robert Schachter

Dan Schakel

Lucie and Stephen Schlesinger

Susan Schlichting

Andrew Schumacher, MD

Reva M. Schuster

Carmen Scotten

Camilla Seferian

Ernesto Segura

Sadhna and Mahesh Sejpal

Christine Serra-Harris

Patti and Rich Severa

Mary and Peter Shackle

James and Carolyn Shelly

Vandana and George Sheth

Bharti Sheth

Karen and Chan-Chou

Shiao Chuang, MD

Eileen Shibata

Edward Shimp

Sierra Constellation Partners

John G. Singh

Marsha and William Singleton

Manette Sinkus

Dawn S. Skinas

Berthe Slattery

Nina Smith

Linda and David Smith

South Bay Evergreen

Seniors Association

Diane Spellman

Eric Steinmann

Rosalie J. Stevens

Amanda and Robert Stewart

Janet and Michael Stoakley

Joyce and Jared Stout

Madhulika Subherwal

Nani and Elliot Sumi, MD

Christina Sweeney

Ruby and Clarence Tabata

Lisa Takata

Reiko and Roy Takeno

Remer Tangoan

Walter Tanji

Inez Tarver

Keith Tate, III

Tina Tattersall

Irene Terrell

Trudi and Timothy Tessalone

Terry D. Thomas

Joanie Thompson

Steven Thompson

Daune and David Thorington

Anthony Todora

Beryl Tokunaga

Gemma and Noah Tomsio

Betty Torrance

Carmen Torres

Wendy Towler

JoAnne Traynor

Steve Tsai

Kerrin Tso

Ruth Velasco

Erlinda Valerio

Cesar Valle

Marcela and John Vanhara

Daniel Vega

Ed Vierzba

Michelle VonKannon

Bao Vu

Carol Wagner

Ronald Walecki

Lani Walker

Patricia O’Reilly and Douglas Walter

Susan Warner

Midge and Ben Waters

Angela Watters

Janet Westergaard

Robyn Westfall

Helene and Richard Whilden

Emily and Rich Wickline

Laura Wilhelm

Julie and Robert L. Williams

Alissa and Robert Wilson

Lisa and Brian Winkelspecht

Judith and Barry Wolstan, MD

Arlene Yakush

Charlene Yamamoto

Raymond Yang

Aileen Yap

Yasmin G. Yap-Mariano

Phil and Sylvia Yim

Sammi Yim

Bruce Young

Sharon and Mark Zahoryin

Tiffani and Cesar Zanelli

Rory Zatyko

PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Nadia Antii, CRPC

Gregory Becker, Esq.

Beti Tsai Bergman, Esq.

Stephanie Bezner, Esq.

Yvonne Chavez

Stephen F. Connors, CFP

Phillip Cook, CFP

Christian Cordoba, CFP

Maureen Dearden

Scott J. Donnelly, CPA

Vince Fierro

Nancy Gragg, CWS

Suzanne Grudnitski, CLPF

Eric J. Harris, Esq.

Brandon Hohm, CPA

Bryan P. Hori

Alexis M. Jensen, CPA

Derrick Kawamoto

Deborah Keesey, Esq.

Troy Martin, Esq.

Ron Miller, CLPF

Mathew Moore

Karen Pryor

Cristin H. Rigg, CFP, CDFA

Gregory Schill, CFP

F. Thomas Schlappatha, CFP

Marianne C. Sfreddo, CPA

Grace Greer St. Clair, Esq.

Larry Takahashi, CFP

Sylvia Thompson

Mark Tsujimoto

Stuart Tsujimoto, CFP

Kazuaki Uemura, Esq.

Abby Waddell


Supporters

AMBASSADORSVISIONARY - $10,000+

Diane and Davis Moore

Twanna and Tim Rogers

Elaine Scott

Liz and Rich Umbrell

PREMIER - $5,000

Valerie and Chris Adlam

Karen Blain

Jean Breedlove

Laurie and John Bucher

Francesca and Doug Deaver

Kay and William Kim, MD

Dianne and Ned Mansour

Garrett Matsunaga, MD and

Melanie Dee, MD

Allison and Rick Mayer

Sunny Melendez, MD and

Ron Melendez, MD

Jacquelyne and Steven Miller

Tricia and Thomas Paulsen

Christina and Phil Pavesi

Celia and Robert Rothman

Linda and Robert Vallee

Jeff Wilson, Chevron U.S.A.

PLATINUM - $2,500

Patricia and Dick Carlson

Lynne and Horace Cochran

Nancy Combs

Pam Crane

Juli and Michael DiLustro

Donna and R. Stephen Doan


Marnie and Dan Gruen

Rosalind Halikis

Susan Heflinger

John D. Hodder

Donna and George Lee

Stanley Levine

Catherine Melton

Izzat Alamdari and

Eric Milefchik, MD

Marilyn and Frank Miles

Jonathan Po, MD and Harriet Po

Ellen and Pat Theodora

Nancy Weisel

Alissa and Robert Wilson

Dwight and Kay Yamada

Andrea and Michael Zislis

Paul’s Photo, Inc.

GOLD - $1,000

Khrystyna Pavlova and Riad

Adoumie, MD

Frank Y. An, MD

Elisa Anhalt, MD and

Douglas Laurin

Michele and William Averill, MD

Margaret and Morton Bauchman

Peggy and Cliff Berwald

John D. Blakey, MD

Jeanie and Don Blum

Trudy Brown

Sylvia and Harry Bruni

Ann and David Buxton

Linda and Zan Calhoun

Vinh Cam, MD and Judy Nei

Philip W. Chung, MD and

Lauren Choi, MD

Priscilla and Frank Clark

Louise and David Clinton

Kate and David Cocke

Kathy and Paul Cohen

Joy and Marc Colman, MD

Kathleen Crane and

The Honorable Milan Smith

Donald Culler

Judy Dabinett

Alyson and Dean Decker

Cindy and Steven Dennis

Susan Dilamarter

Marcia Ding, MD and

James Ding, MD

Suzann and Don Douthwright

Valerie Carrier and Eric Dupont

Diane Liebenson and

Thomas Duralde, MD

Beth and Berkley Eichel, MD

Regina and Dan Finnegan

Mary and Steven Fisher, MD

Janet and John Fleming

Patricia and Paul Francis

Jeannine and Dennis Frandsen

Angela and Dean Furkioti, DDS

Judy Gassner

Karen Gottlieb

Chansen and Miaoshia Han

Donna Marie and

Eugene Hardin, MD

George C. Hartmann Jr.

Teresa and Zaffar Hassanally

Donna Helstrom

Agi Hirshberg

Mike Ho, MD


Sandy and Karl Jackson

John Johnson, MD

Hakimeh Kadivar, MD

Loretta and Art Kaiser

Valerie and Edward Kelly

Susan and Lawrence Kneisley, MD

Paula and Arthur Kozinski

Sherry and Ian Kramer, MD

Patricia Kromka

Yukiko and John Kuno

Patti and Thomas LaGrelius, MD

Diane and Mark Landon

Christina and George Legg

Charlotte and Russ Lesser


Nelman Low, MD and Karen Low

Melody and Thomas Lowe, MD

Vicky and Winston Mar

Sudy and Bud Mayo

Eduard E. Morf

Joanne and Marc Moser

Karen and Gene Naftulin, MD

Erin and Brian Neal

Warren Oda

Judith K. Opdahl

Delores Parcell

Phyllis Pelezzare

Linda Pullen-Buehl

Rose Anne and Jerry Redman

Rhea and Patrick Rendon

Mary and Timothy Richardson

Carlene Ringer

Tamara Ritchey Powers

Tiffany Rogers, MD


Marlene Schultz and Philip Walent

Jerry Schwartz, MD

JoAnn and Kemper Shaw

Julie and Nick Silvino, MD

Mae and Deren Sinkowitz, MD

Fay and Mitchell Sklar, MD

Christine and Scott Smith

Jackelyn Lee, MD and

George So, MD

Karen and Richard Sonner, MD

Cherie and William Steckbauer

Robert Stephenson

Betty Strauss

Carolyn and Charles Turek, MD

Mary Jo and Jerome Unatin, MD

Karen Varon

Terri and Dennis Cammarano

Kerry and David Wallis, MD

Brigid and James Wethe, MD

Susan and Matthew Whelan

Cynthia Williams, MD

Terry and Jim Witte

Judith and Barry Wolstan, MD

Peter and Monica Wong

Cathi and R. Michael Wyman, MD

Nancy and Roger Zapor

SILVER - $500

Christy and Jay Abraham

Marcia and Lawrence August, MD

Harriet Bailiss-Sustarsic

Josephine and Stephen Balzano

Cynthia Bandy

Michele and Robert Bell

Stephanie and Brian Bezner

Diana and George Brandt

Elena and Larry Bruns

Edna Campbell

Anita Canfield

Lucille Cassiglia

Stanley Chang, MD and

Joanne Chang

Jim and Julie Chen


Supporters

Lilian and Patrick Chik

Donna and Michael Ciminera

Marci and Fred Clayton

Patricia Croce

Vanessa Dickey, MD

Karla Burns and Brett Dillenberg

Sally and Mike Eberhard

Lisa Fisher, MD and Brian Fitzgerald

Farnaz and Lawrence Flechner, MD

LeRoy Forehand

Karen and John Freeman

Juan Frisancho, MD

Elaine and Byron Gee

Debbi and Moe Gelbart, PhD

Debra and Damien Goldberg, MD

Maria and Wayne Grau

Nancy Griffith and Richard Schell

Timme and Kurt Gunderlock

Nancy and Keith Hauge

Lynne and Jim Held

Shirley and Chih-Ming Ho

Laura and Doug Hofmann

Kalpana Hool, MD and

Hugo Hool, MD

Daniel R. Hovenstine, MD

Lesley and Colin Hull

Lindsay and Peter Imwalle

Maria and Robert Jaques

David S. Kim, MD

Wendy Klarik


Rachel A. Knopoff, MD and

Russell Dickerson, MD

Jessica and

Tonny Meng-Che Lee, MD

Martha and David Leveille, MD

Andrea and Jamie Lewis, MD

Kenneth Libkin

Charles Lobb

Peter Lorman, MD

Laurie and Steve Love

Crystal and Roderick MacDonell

Lisa and Christopher Martz

Laura and Ronald McIntire

Donald Mehlig

Mary and Gus Meier

Roxanne and

Ramin Mirhashemi, MD

Ann and Daniel Mueller

Shalini Singh and

Vimal Murthy, MD

Cassandra Ndiforchu, MD and

Fombe Ndiforchu, MD

Melanie R. O’Regan

Melissa Orr and Ken Aster

Rosalie and Chirag Patel, MD

Clint Patterson and

Richard Boos, MD

Elizabeth Paul, MD and

Joy Paul, MD

Robyn and Albert Peacock

Cynthia and Laurence Percz

Linda Perry

Candace and Larry Poindexter

Lori and Ray Richard

David and Yoshiko Rock

Carmen and Gordon Schaye, MD

Marcia and Michael Schoettle

Drs. Arthur and Linda Schultz

Barbara Schulz, MD

Jane Semel, MD

Dorothy Shen

Trudy Smith

Carolyn Snyder

Erin and Paul Stanley

Bert Stewart

Amanda and Robert Stewart

William Tarng, MD

Michelle Nguyen and

Nhat Tran, MD

Margaret and David Waite

Mary and Steven Wheatley

Kathy and David Willock

Curtice Wong, MD

Ellen and George Zelinsky

Ann and Gary Zimmerman

LIFETIME

Gail and Doug Allen

Betty Belsky

Achara and Thomas Cowell, MD

Duane Denney

Virginia and Dennis Fitzgerald

Sherry and Thomas Gossett, MD

George Graham

Patti and Al Hermann

Carole Hoffman

Joseph and Theresa Hohm

Kathleen and

Richard Krauthamer, MD

Sylvia and Robert Laxineta, D.D.S.

Judy and Craig Leach

Patricia and Richard Lucy

Carol Magee

Cheryl Melville

Genevieve and Hugh Muller

Robin and Norman Panitch, MD

Ellen and Fraser Perkins, MD

Margaret and Gerald Reich, MD

Carlene and Edward Reuscher

Patricia Sacks, MD

Beya and Robert Schaeffer, MD

Loraine Scriba

Laura and Tom Simko, MD

Kimberly and David Stone, MD

Tina and Peter Vasilion

Teresa and Gerald Wasserwald, MD

Erin and Patrick Yeh, MD

Alice Young

YOUNG PROFESSIONALS & PROFESSIONALS ALLIANCE (YPPA)

Michelle Abraham

Janice and Mark Ancheta, MD

Michaela and John Andrawis, MD

Elisa Anhalt, MD and Doug Laurin

Nadia Antii

Melanie and Benjamin Archer

Anthony Arellano-Kruse, MD

Megan and Andrew Bark

Stephanie Bezner, Esq. and

Brian Bezner

Meena Bhasin-Shah, MD and

Samir Shah

Kevin Bidenkap

Angelie and John Blakey, MD

Nadine and Ty Bobit

Danielle Boujikian

Ashima Brar, MD and

Amarprett Brar, MD

Alexandra Bujor, MD

Drisa Carrizo, CPA

Lauren and Benjamin Carroll, MD

Cody Charnell

Kelly Cox

Shoshana and Phillip V. Cutler

Kristen Damon, Esq.

Teri Dart

Sara Deen, DDS and Omer Deen, MD

Alice Diego-Malit, MD

Laaila and Mark Dodson

Thess Duong


Denise and Roy Fu, MD

Stephen Garcia

Judith Gassner

Teresa Gordon

John Gragg, CFP

Khryste and Steven Griswold

Kimberly and Justin Guichard


Jenn and Brandon Hohm

Allison and Justin Holcher, CFP

NaiWei Hsu, RN

Slavka Jasik-Whitaker &

Brad Whitaker

Dawn and Bo Kaplan

Veronica and Jeff Kern

Lynn Kim

Song and Dave Klein


Supporters

EMPLOYEE AMBASSADORSSusan Abelson

Susie Kim Adams

Nancy Agustin

Tomoko Akazawa

Michele Alarcon

Bibi Ali

Ellen Allen-Wainwright

Mary Ann J. Alvarez

Mei Amano

Kent Amano

Arlene Amigable

Melissa Andrus

Oliva Arcala

Ashley Archuleta

Aley Arredondo

Maria Arteaga

Jose Albert Rey Asis

Sheryl Y. Au

Randy Avakian

Kathie Avakian

Sara K. Avakian

Jacqueline Ayres

Lauren Ayres

Gwendolyn Bailey

Sara Cruz Baldos

Cecilia Banania

Lisa Bargar

Dan Bauman

Marnie Bay

Irene L. Bayan

Suzanne Beehler

Melissa Benoit

Anthony Berry

Betsy Biggins

Kyomi Bolender

Lance Bommelje

Maricela Bordenave

Kathryn Braasch

Mary Bradfield-Smith

Patricia Brienzo

Beth Burkhalter

Joy Burkhardt

Heather Burt

Agnes Butardo

Dinah Cabalatungan

Caroline Cabilogan

Felicidad Cabuena

Cathrine Cainglet

Evelyn Calip

Helen Camero

Loreta Camiling

Robin Camrin

Thelma Carbonell

Luzviminda B. Cartera

Susan Castillo

Rosalinda Catamisan

Dolores Cellier

Bobbie Chan

Arliene P. Chang

Changrong Cheng

Julie Che-Potter

Heidi Chong

Alan Chung

Elizabeth Cinco

Sallie Cintron

Ingrid Cobb

Coral Cortez

Danielle Cosgrove

Carolyn Cruz

Jeanette M. Cutuli

Michelle Dahle

Sandra E. Daos

Azam Daryabar

Mina Dastgheib

Geraldine De La Cruz

Lety De La Torre

Juan Diaz

Jann and Dan Dickson

Margaret Doran

Patty Drew

Connie and Jeffrey Lai, MD

Cora H. Lee and Dan Chen

Kathy Levy, RN

Beth Lowerison, RN

Annsley and Matthew Marshall

Colleen and Jamie McKinnell, MD

Donna McNeely

Erik Milanez

Brian Miura, MD

Tricia Mohammed-Stein

Austin Moller

Roberta Berg Moller

Spencer Moller

Amanda Murphy, MD &

Keith W. Murphy

Shalini and Vimal Murthy, MD

Sophia and Philippe Neveu

Maria Olton, RN and Dru Olton

Sarina Pai, DO

Jennifer and Victor Pan

April and Hank Parker, CPA

Angela Park-Sheldon, CFP and

Hank Sheldon

William Rehrig

Maggie Rodriguez, RN

Leah Romine, RN and Matthew Willis

Maria Sass-Goldstein and

Jared Goldstein

Madeline and Alex Schumacher

Allyson and Alexander Shen, MD

Brian Sherman, MD

Karen C. Shum, DPM

Brooke Sigler, CPA

Leann Siegel

Julie Sim, MD

Margaret and Edward Sipes

Cyndy and Joseph Spierer

Kellie and Todd Stender

Brittany and Jason Stone

Gina Sulmeyer, MD and Michael Arriola

William Tarng, MD

Stephanie Tang, DO and

Christopher Angemi, DO

Natalie Thorpe, RN and Dave Thorpe

Shelly Trites, RN

Elizabeth and Richard Umbrell

Brandy Van Zitter, RN

Meg and Anthony Walker

Sarah Wohn, MD

Hilary and Clay Zachry

Andrea and Michael ZislisBrandy Van Zitter and Brian Miura MD scuba diving in Cozumel, Mexico


Supporters

Carla Duhovic

Cindy Durant

Sally Eberhard

Maria Eclevia

Mary J. Eddy

Priscilla Ednilao

Elaine M. Eguchi

Cheryl Ely

Cathy Emmerson

Juliana S. Enge

Josephine Espejo

Ana Maria Espejo

Mary E. Espinoza

Don Florentino Estrada

Marissa Farol

Todd Felker

Carlos Fernandez

Justin Ficke

Erin Fiorito

Mary Ford

Tom Fox

Carol E. Fukuchi

Liza Gage

Sidney Gamber

Tami Garcia

Judith Gassner

Tammy Ginder

Jill Golden

Alfrenda Gonzales

Herna Joy Gonzalez

Maria D. Gonzalez

Mary Accetta Goodloe

Gale Gould

Zorayda Gozun

Tracey Green

Cathy Guthrie

Kathy Hagemeier

Shanna Hall

Michael Hanson

Jeremiah Hargrave

Natalie Hassoldt

Jacqueline Hemmah

Mona L. Hernandez

Tim Hersey

Mary Hersh

Bruce A. Hershberger

Vickie Hershberger

Corrine Hidalgo

Debbie Hoagland

Suellen G. Hosino

Maria Hovsepian

Linda Howard

David Hozaki

Naiwai Hsu-Chang

Lisa G. Hughes

Barbara Ignacio

Tokiko Imai

Florence D. Intok

Valerie Ishihara

Carolyn Ito

Lynn Jagger

Rosario Jarquin

Bonnie Jewell

Mike and Janet Johnson

Rena Johnson

Kathryn Joiner

Layne Kelley

Debra Kelley

Cynthia Keus

Freda Khan

Anne Kienberger

Dennis Kikuno

Changkyun Kim

Rev. James Kim

Lisa A. Kiyohara

Susan Koch

Kimberley Koontz

Julie A. Krueger

Chance Krutsinger

John Kumashiro

Sandra Langhammer

Gerald and Trisha Lanphen

Steve Lantz

Craig Leach

Judy Grace Lebrillo

Vivian Lee

Devi Legaspi

Patricia Leonard

Chi Leung

Mary Jane and Nolan Lew

Susan Lieu

Linda Lillington

Christine Lopez

Esther Lopez

Richard and Martha Lopez

Maricarmen Luhrsen

Liza Lumanlan-Domingo

Shirley Rose Maderazo

Fernando & Eva Sophia

Magdaleno

Patricia Mann

Cindy Manson

Wei Q. Mao

Elizabeth Marquez

Mary Matson

Patrick Matteo

Anne McCormick

Elaine McRae

Maria L. Mendoza

Mary Ann Merritt

Melany Merryman

Pamela Michael

Carmen Miguel

Rene Miller

Nancy C. Milliren

Marian Mills

Lauren Mitchell

Rosalyn Modeliste

Glenda M. Moore

Matthew Morales

Nancy Mukai

Sanjeshni Murphy

Nooshin Naghsheh

Tamiko Nakama

Allisha Nazareth

Edward Nazareth

Sue-Ann Nouchi

Young Oh

Eliza Oliveros

Melissa O’Malley

Sheila O’Neill-O’Connor

Martha D. Ortiz

Mary Osborne

Ronald Padilla

Maureen Palladini

Doris A. Paloma

Michele Palombo

Wendy Pangindian

Jacqueline Parker-Johnson

Lorena M. Pascual

Winston Pascual

Donna Patch

Jiteshkumar Patel

Jennifer Patten

Jaquelina Patti

Paty Pearce

Patricia Perez

David Phung

Kay Pitonzo

Vilma Plagata

Zenaida Poquiz

Steve Porter

Gigi C. Portugal

Paul Pourzia

Karen Provin

Pat Quan

Dorine Queener

Susan Quenga

Sherry L. Rafters

Ann Raljevich

Christopher Rama

Denzil Ramdhanie

Sophia Ramirez

Armando & Faye Ramos

Karen Randazzo

Maria D. Rangel

Bernie Reid

Tami Reiland

Debbie Reyes

Richard Rivera

Cora Roa

Addy Rodriguez

Sam Rodriguez

Dottie Rudinica

Lynn Ruffin

Terry Runzler

Arceli Salanguit

Ana Salinas

Isabelo Salva

Angela Salva

May Santos

Rinnah T. Sapitanan

Vilma H. Sapitanan

Catherine Sarcona

Dan Schakel

Laura Schenasi

Todd Schenasi

Stephanie Schmid

Jamie Schneider

Kathleen Sheridan Schumm

Ernesto Segura

Connie Senner

Rucinda Sepulveda

Christine Serra-Harris

Khalid Shariff

Heather Shay

LaDonna & Joe Shea

John Singh

Manette Sinkus

Leilani Small

Rhoda Marie Soto

Michael R. Steele

Bert Stewart

Madhu Subherwal

Christina Sweeney

Lisa Takata

Remer Tangoan

Keith Tate, III

Tina Tattersall

Julie Taylor

Richard Tejada

Terry D. Thomas

Steven Thompson

Beryl Tokunaga

Wynne Torqueza

Mei Tsai

Steve Tsai

Grace Turk

Dianna Tyndall

Veronica Urbano

Talaina Utu

Maria Valdivia

Cesar Valle

Sandy VandenBerge

Ruth Velasco

Bao Vu

Lani Walker

Angie Watters

Patrick Wecker

Maria E. White

Betty Wilber

Laura Wilhelm

Arnie Wolfson

Dianne Wood

Lori Woodman

Mary Wright

Yasmin Yap-Mariano

Phil and Sylvia Yim

Sean Yokoe

Joanne Yoshida

Tiffani Zanelli

Rory Zatyko


Supporters

HERITAGE SOCIETYJames Andrews

Shirley† and Winton† Baker

Lenore Bemis

Hilde Boldt

Elaine Booth-Carnegis

Jan and Virgil Bourgon

Robert† and Patricia Brewster

Mimi Brody

Ronnie Brown

Maria Buechler

James Philip Burt

Benjamin Cheng and Kim McCarthy

Marilyn Chevalier

Herbert Clarkson

Francine and Phillip Cook

Leola Cork†

Bette and Dick† Crowell

Ruth and Harv Daniels

Ginny and John Dixon

Sheri and Casey Dodge

Arlene and Dale Dorman

Thyra Endicott, MD and

Jonathan Chute

Judy English and

William Crudup, MD†

Sam and Rose Feng

Myrna Frame

Henry Frankenberg

Judith and Robert Frinier

Sunila Fuster, MD

Sidney Gamber

Irene Goldman and David Sato†

Susan Goodlerner, MD and

Ed Wolfman

George W. Graham

Fran and James Harrison Trust

Patricia and Gary† Hathaway, MD

Adrianne and Alan† Hegge

Patricia and David Hempel

Joan Henderson

Eve and Rick Higgins

Aida Hillway†

Keiko and Allen Hochstein

Daniel Hovenstine, MD

Donald† and Priscilla Hunt

Gary Hunter

Maude Infantino

June Kaneoka

Ronna and Robert† Katz

Sylvia Kennedy

Stuart C. Kern

Robert P. Koch

Millie Kruger

Micki and Norman Lasky, MD

Irving Levine

Pat and Richard Lucy


Barbara Demming Lurie and

Mark Lurie, MD

Judith Maizlish

Larry Maizlish

Franceen† and Michael McClung

Del McCulloch

Kak and David McKinnie

Sandra and Kenneth McKivett

Linda Severy McMahon and

Jerold McMahon

Carol and Karl McMillen

Rita and Joseph C. Meistrell

Cheryl Melville

Richard Meyer, DDS

Myron and Luise Miller

Doris and Gregory Morton

Steve Nash and Dell Fortune†

Victoria Nishioka†

Judith Opdahl

Kenneth O’Rourke

Lore and Marv Patrick

Christina and Phil Pavesi


Fran and Rob Peveler

Donna and John† Prysi

Betty Jane and Ernest Rivera

Lavonne and Jerry† Rodstein




Diane and Eric Schott

Elaine and David Scott, MD

Loraine and Ralph† Scriba

René and Phyllis Scribe

John R. Sealy, MD

Judy and Sherrill Sipes

Thelma and Phil Steinberg

Nancy and Douglas Teulie

Inge Thompson

Frances and Stuart Tsujimoto

Sandy VandenBerge

Marcela and John Vanhara

Edith Wallace

Susan K. Warner

Suzanne Webb

Nancy Weisel

Carol A. Wharton

Lois and Richard Winters

Josephine Sim Yoe

Teri and Rob Young

Edward Zack†

Stanley and Frances Zee

†Deceased

John and Marcela Vanhara with Brutus hiking at Lake Tahoe


Supporters

IN-KIND DONATIONSAmerican Legacy Karate Academy

Tricia Au

AVE Wines

Maria Ballinger

Lori Barnett

Lisa and Ken Baronsky

Nancy and Everett Bender

Bennett Landscaping

Bettolino Kitchen

BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse

Bonnie Bleu

Bliss and Wisdom

Charitable Organization

Rachel Bloom,

Handsome Iguana Inc.

Bradford Renaissance Portraits

Ellie Brisbin, RN

Desiree and Malalee Brown

Brownie Troop 9075

C2 Education

Cami’s Jammies

Camp Run-A-Mutt

Susan and Adam Carroll

CeraVe

Deb and Brooke Charlton

Jennifer and Anthony Chen, MD

Chinese Univ Alumni Assoc

Alliance of SoCal (CUAAASC)

Cara Chlebicki


Classy Bag Lady

Cookin’ Thyme Personal

Chef & Catering Service

Melody Cooper

Corridor Flow

The Deck Boys Cigar Club

Ela and Rita Desai

Deidre Davidson Photography

Dogtopia South Bay

Fowler & Moore Interiors

Freedom4U

Judy Fujimoto

FutureStitch, Inc.

Rosalinda Garza

Alesia Giampaoli

Girl Scout Troop 12345

Girl Scout Troop 16445

Anne and Sal Gonzales

Irmhild and Lucas Hahn

Suzy Hall Interior Design

Halper Fine Art

Chih-Ming and Shirley Ho

Joseph and Terry Hohm

Jason and Anita Hsieh

Wendy Huang

In-N-Out Burger

iS Clinical

J. Elizabeth Portraiture

Joyce Carol Jewelry

Lea Ann King

KINONA


koi

Patricia Kromka

LaCroix Sparkling Water

Valerie Lam and Family

Diane and Mark Landon

LaRoche Posay

Las Amigas of

Torrance Memorial Medical Center

Chen Kuo, Grace Lee, Jane Chen

Jessica and Tonny

Meng-Che Lee, MD

Leonardo & Roberto’s

Gourmet Blends

Cynthia Libertini, RN

Kitty and John Lim, MD

Peng Xie and WanLing Lin


Judith and Arthur Lubin

Lucky Dawg Grooming Salon

Luminaries/Novas of

Torrance Memorial


Kristy and Eric Maniaci

Marcus Medical Spa

Andrea Martinez

Christie and John Mavredakis

Jim McAteer

Laurie and Tom McCarthy

Derek McCoy Photography

Elaine McRae and Michael Wilcox

Sunny Melendez, MD and Ron

Melendez, MD

Mission: Renaissance

Modern Jewelers

Norma Mooney

Nina June Mozayeny

Jin and Min Myung

Nando Trattoria

Jeffrey and Tiffany Neu

NP Wine Consulting

Oakmont Senior Living Torrance

Okinawa Association of America

OsteoStrong Torrance,

Brian Channell

Palos Verdes Florist

Palos Verdes Golf Club

Palos Verdes Tennis Club

Palos Verdes National

Charity League

Cathy and Greg Pass

Kim Perkins

Plaza Del Amo Animal Hospital and

Pet Keeper

PRP Wine International

Rice Kitchen

Roclord Studio Photography



Suzanne Rowland

Rowley Portraiture

Andrea and James Sala

Santa Anita Golf Course


Marge Schugt

Kay and Sam Sheth

Cathy and Alan Siegel

Simms Restaurants

Skylar

South Bay Mommies & Daddies

South Bay Plastic Surgeons

Lynnie Sterba

Sandra Sumarno

Shari and Craig Sunada

Terranea Resort

The Beauty Nest

Tiaki Management

Shirin Towfigh, MD,

Beverly Hills Hernia Center

Triton Pacific Construction Group

Mike and Nina Tsai

Cathy and Peter Tseng, MD

Ulmer Dermatology

Uncorked Wine Shop

Sandy VandenBerge

Emily von Buttlar

VOSS Water

Mary Weinberg

Wine Chips

Pat and Frank Yee

Erin and Patrick Yeh, MD

Andrea and Michael Zislis

Peter and Senfu Zhang, CEO, of AOG Naturals donated 2,112 hand sanitizers for Torrance Memorial staff


The Last Word

“NOTHING IN LIFE IS TO BE FEARED, IT IS ONLY TO BE UNDERSTOOD. NOW IS THE

TIME TO UNDERSTAND MORE, SO THAT WE MAY FEAR LESS.”

—Marie Curie, physicist

Thank you to the volunteer groups that have donated painted rocks of art, inspiration and kindness

"I was in a lot "I was in a lot of pain leading up of pain leading up

my life back.my life back.""- Jill Lynch, Yoga Instructor &

Bilateral Hip Replacement Patient*Refl ects inpatient cases reported to the Offi ce of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) 2019 data.

Do More of WhatMovesYou

TORRANCE MEMORIAL’S LUNDQUIST ORTHOPEDICINSTITUTE IS THE LEADER IN THE SOUTH BAY. Our team of mult i -discipl inary experts offers one of the most advanced, comprehensive, and minimally invasive orthopedic care programs in Souther n Ca l i fo r n ia , inc lud ing Mako ®

robotic arm-assisted technology. We have the expertise and the experience with three t imes the number of orthopedic cases than any other hospital in the South Bay.* We'l l help you get back to doing what you love faster and healthier. Learn more TorranceMemorial.org/Ortho

LUNDQUIST ORTHOPEDIC INSTITUTE

A World’s Best Specialized Hospital in Cardiology

TO R R A N C E M E M O R I A L’ S L U N D Q U I S T L U R I E TO R R A N C E M E M O R I A L’ S L U N D Q U I S T L U R I E CARDIOVASCULAR INSTITUTE IS PROUD TO BE CARDIOVASCULAR INSTITUTE IS PROUD TO BE RECOGNIZED AS A LEADER IN CARDIAC CARE.RECOGNIZED AS A LEADER IN CARDIAC CARE. We have been recognized as a local and global leader of NEWSWEEK’S TOP CARDIOVASCULAR HOSPITALS IN THE WORLD. This inaugural award recognition would not be possible without the unwavering support and generosity of Melanie and Richard Lundquist and the Lurie family. Learn more at TMCardio.com

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