In her 23 years of leadership at PanCAN, Julie Fleshman has been a global catalyst for change in the fight against pancreatic cancer. Her commitment began after she lost her dad to the disease, just four months after his diagnosis. He was 52. Fleshman wanted to know why more wasn’t being done – why her dad and thousands of other patients were offered no treatment options and sent home to die.
The pancreatic cancer landscape back then was quite different from today. Very little was known about the disease, only a handful of researchers were studying it and the five-year survival rate was just 4%.
In 1999, Fleshman was hired as PanCAN’s first employee, became its first Executive Director in 2000 and in 2004, became President and CEO.
Under her leadership, PanCAN has grown from a staff of one with annual revenues of $228,000 to a staff of over 175 with a budget of more than $58 million.
Advocacy and grassroots efforts have expanded to nearly 60 affiliates nationwide and yielded a 1075% increase in federal funding for pancreatic cancer research.
Fleshman encourages convening of leading experts and stakeholders in the field – researchers, healthcare professionals, industry and key opinion leaders. This allows her to build a continually expanding community of hundreds of pancreatic cancer thought leaders across the country who work in concert and devote their research efforts to improving patient outcomes.
During Fleshman’s tenure, the organization has awarded 236 pancreatic cancer research grants and has a projected total research investment of approximately $208 million, including the competitive Research Grants Program and leading-edge scientific and clinical initiatives.
Her collaborative leadership style enabled the organization to launch ground-breaking initiatives like PanCAN’s Precision Promise℠ – a clinical trials platform designed to accelerate new treatment options for pancreatic cancer patients. In 2021, PanCAN launched the Early Detection Initiative, the largest prospective clinical trial of its kind, to create an early detection strategy for the disease.
Fleshman is sought after as an expert by the national media including The New York Times, CNN, PBS, Headline News, CBS News and ABC News, as well as local press throughout the country. Fleshman addresses diverse stakeholder groups including industry, patients, scientists, donors and volunteers and she is often on Capitol Hill meeting with members of Congress about the importance of the federal investment in pancreatic cancer research.
Fleshman holds her JD and MBA degrees from Santa Clara University and a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. She also studied abroad at Oxford University and in Tokyo, Japan.
Fleshman has been honored for her leadership and dedication in the fight against pancreatic cancer by many organizations. In 2021, she was named Los Angeles Business Journal’s Nonprofit Executive of the Year. She serves on the boards of several cancer care and research committees and organizations. She recently served as a National Cancer Research Advocate for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), providing advice to the NCI Director with respect to promoting research outcomes that are in the best interest of cancer patients. She is currently Chair of Clearity’s Board of Directors, a patient advocacy organization for ovarian cancer patients.
In addition, Fleshman is the Chair of the World Pancreatic Cancer Coalition, an international group of pancreatic cancer patient advocacy groups with a mission to drive transformational change for all those affected by the disease. PanCAN is a founding member of the Coalition, which includes more than 100 pancreatic cancer organizations representing 38 countries on six continents.
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Rita Nakashima Brock, Rel. M., M.A., Ph.D., is Senior Vice President for Moral Injury Recovery Programs at Volunteers of America. She leads the organization’s efforts to deepen understanding about moral injury in the many populations who experience it. The center builds on Volunteers of America’s work, spanning more than a century, of helping veterans and others who live with this emotional trauma.
A noted theologian, Dr. Brock was the Founding Director of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, where she also was a Research Professor of Theology and Culture. She is co-author of Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War, Beacon Press, 2012, and Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering and the Search for What Saves Us, Beacon Press, 2001. She is a leading national expert on moral injury in combat veterans and has offered trainings for VA mental health providers, for professional chaplains, and for veterans and their families.
In her first master’s degree, Dr. Brock studied youth development, psychology of religion, and pastoral counseling and was employed as a youth minister. From 1974 to 1988, Dr. Brock was Protestant chaplain for a high school level, human relations and justice, summer-school program in Los Angeles County called Brotherhood/Sisterhood USA, administered by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In addition, from 1979-1981, she served as Assistant Chaplain and Instructor in Religion at Chapman University.
For 18 years, Dr. Brock was a Professor of World Religions, Philosophy of Religion, Spiritual Biography, Psychology of Religion, Theology and Women’s Studies, and she held the Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, from 1990-1997. In 1997, she became the Director the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, a research fellowship program for distinguished scientists, scholars, humanitarians, and artists. An experienced non-profit program and institution builder, she was a member of the strategic planning team for the 1999 Radcliffe-Harvard merger that led to the creation of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. From 2001-2002, she was a fellow at the Harvard Divinity School Center for Values in Public Life. She also served from 2006-2008 as senior editor in religion for The New Press in New York City. She has edited or contributed to three manuals for navigating careers in religion for the American Academy of Religion. In 2012, she received a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc. to create the Soul Repair Center, which is dedicated to research and education on moral injury and recovery.
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Veer Gidwaney is the Founder and CEO of Ansel Health. Previously, he was Co-founder and CEO of Maxwell Health, which was acquired by Sun Life in 2018. Maxwell Health was ranked #100 on Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500™ list. Veer is a proven entrepreneur and insurance innovator whose energy and experience have long been devoted to solving the problems of our time. Veer lives with his family in the greater New York City area.
Jarrod Lopiccolo
CEO / Co-Founder
With one foot firmly in Reno and the other across the pond at our Bristol, UK office, Jarrod’s globetrotting nature has led him to make meaningful connections with people all over the world. His attention to listening first let’s him learn what makes people tick and, admittedly, helps him harness the insights to propel Noble’s success.
Over the last two decades Jarrod has grown our creative digital performance marketing agency from a single-laptop endeavor to an international company. To date, Noble partnered with brands like Visit Lake Tahoe, Santa Monica, Autodesk, The Islands of Tahiti, Niantic Inc., Adobe, Disney, Visa, Google and more. His passion for creating beautiful human experiences (and his architectural background) have helped Noble translate the best of the real world into virtual architecture.
Jarrod seeks inspiration from the world around him. An avid photographer and outdoorsman, he’s our original Wild Bear—hungry to see the world and always searching for a way to be better. On any given day that could mean sharing his experiences at national conferences, swapping stories with a client or hiking Patagonia with Season, his wife. (Everest is up next. Be better every day, right?)
A mentor, father, husband and visionary, Jarrod has held leadership roles with several non-profit and public-private initiatives in Nevada. He previously served as Co-Executive Director of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Inc. Magazine’s Business Owners Council, was a board member for Northern Nevada Development Authority (NNDA) and an advisory board member for the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (NCET). He’s taken the stage around the world at Destinations International’s Annual Convention, Social Media Week Bristol, eTourism, DMA West, University of Nevada – Reno, University of Nevada – Las Vegas and Truckee Meadows Community College, just to name a few.
Outside of his office in Reno, Nevada, Jarrod likes to keep his hands busy. He prides himself on being an early adopter, trying any interesting technology that comes on the scene and attending CES in Vegas just for the fun of seeing into the future (and how it can be applied to digital marketing, of course). His passion for photography has led him to new horizons–Iceland, in the near future–and led him to form a group for agency photogs throughout the country.
Want to know more about Jarrod? Pull up a handmade chair, grab a glass of homemade beer, wine or mead, and come prepared to share a story of your own.
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Adam Nash is the co-founder & CEO of Daffy.org, a fast-growing platform and community for charitable giving. Adam has served as an executive, angel investor, and advisor to some of the most successful technology companies to come out of Silicon Valley. Adam previously served as President & CEO of Wealthfront. He has held executive and technical roles at Dropbox, LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple. Adam also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches “Personal Finance for Engineers.” As an angel investor, Adam is well known for being an early investor in Firebase (sold to Google), Opendoor (Ticker: OPEN), Figma, Gusto, and over 120 other startups. Adam holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University, as well as an MBA from Harvard.
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Terry Andre
Terry Andre has led AmCoat Industrial as its CEO since 2010. With more than twenty years of contract manufacturing experience, he is uniquely qualified to help dealers develop their businesses and keep the supply chain moving. Terry and his wife Kathy, reside in Destin, Florida and have three adult children.
AmCoat Industrial is the manufacturer of high performance coatings for walls, roofs and specialty industrial applications. AmCoat is home to some of the most recognized paint brands in the U.S. most notably Rhino Shield Ceramic Coatings and Floor Shield 100% Polyaspartic Coating Systems. Through a network of independent dealers, AmCoat distributes its products nationally and internationally coating thousands of homes and buildings.
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