OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Four Kaiser Permanente leaders have been named to Diversity MBA Magazine's Top 100 Under 50 Diverse Executiveand Emerging Leaders list.

Nicole Barnett, assistant medical group administrator, and Anthony Barrueta, senior vice president of government relations, were recognized as Executive Leaders. L. Robert Garcia, director of finance communications and Sally Saba, MD, executive director of National Supplier Diversity, placed in the Emerging Leader category.

Diversity MBA Magazine, a quarterly publication that aims to serve the needs of multicultural professionals in corporate America, business students and entrepreneurs, will honor the Top 100 leaders in the publication's summer 2012 edition.

"We're pleased these four leaders have been recognized for their achievements and leadership within the organization and their communities," said George Halvorson, chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Permanente. "We're more successful as an organization when we leverage and learn from the different backgrounds and unique perspectives of our diverse workforce. We truly believe that diversity within our organization helps us better understand and meet the needs of our members."

"We are humbled by the success of our Top 100 Under 50 recognition program," says Pam McElvane, publisher and CEO of Diversity MBA Magazine. "We aspired to recognize high potential and seasoned executives for their outstanding leadership within their companies and communities.We believe that celebrating individuals that value higher education is a unique recognition in aligning leadership and education."

Awardees will be honored at Diversity MBA Magazine's sixth annual Business Leaders Forum and Awards Gala. The gala will be held Sept. 20-21 at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel in Chicago.

More information about Kaiser Permanente's honorees can be found below:

Nicole Barnett is assistant medical group administrator for Kaiser Permanente's East Bay Area, where she provides leadership to the departments of medical secretaries, medical legal, health education, eye care services, and clinic operations in Richmond, Pinole and Alameda, Calif.

Barnett participates in Kaiser Permanente's volunteer program, often facilitating local outreach efforts and recruiting volunteers from her facilities and departments. Under her leadership, the Kaiser Permanente Pinole (Calif.) Medical Office received the distinction of Business of the Year in 2011 for outreach efforts. Barnett serves as the leader of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church Health Ministry, which seeks to improve the health of members and the community through health education, screenings and connections to local health care resources.

Barnett earned her doctorate in health sciences from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. She currently is an adjunct professor of nursing at Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif. and has taught masters-level courses on Transitions in Nursing, Healthcare Policy and Healthcare Economics.

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Four Kaiser Permanente Leaders Listed Among Diversity MBA Magazine's Top 100 Under 50 List

MOUNT PLEASANT, MI The Central Michigan University College of Medicine added two staff members to admissions as student enrollment is underway.

Chris Austin is director of admissions and Jennifer Paulke is assistant director of admissions. They started earlier this month.

Austin, a CMU graduate, has worked at CMU since 1997 in admissions and alumni relations. His new job duties include recruiting students, managing the medical school admissions office and marketing.

Paulke, a Michigan native, comes from Florida Gulf Universitys College of Medicine where she was assistant director of admissions. At CMU, she will be responsible for recruitment and community involvement with schools in Michigan.

As assistant director of admissions, Paulke will be responsible for recruitment and community involvement particularly with the universities, colleges and school systems in Michigan. She will work with the director and the admissions staff in all aspects of medical student admissions.

CMU's medical school will open in 2013 with its first class of 60 students. The students will spend two years at the Mount Pleasant campus before beginning clinical training in Saginaw in Covenant HealthCare and St. Mary's of Michigan through CMU Healthcare, formerly Synergy Medical Education Alliance.

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CMU adds two staff members in College of Medicine admissions office

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The ninth annual Cobre/Silver Alumni Baseball/Softball games will be held Saturday, Aug. 18, at 6 p.m., at the Ben Altamirano Sports Complex.

SILVER CITY The ninth annual Cobre/Silver Alumni Baseball/Softball Classic will take place at the Ben Altamirano Sports Complex on Saturday, Aug. 18, at 6 p.m.

The event is sponsored by AmBank, Morning Star, Gila Regional Medical Center, and New Mexico State Senator Howie Morales. Proceeds from the event will be donated toward Grant County s efforts of cancer prevention awareness

Former students/coaches of Silver High School and Cobre High School will once again have an opportunity to showcase their school colors and diamond skills, even organizer Artie Sanchez said. The same players will also get a chance to get reacquainted with good memories and friends.

Sanchez said last year more than 100 former players and coaches participated in the event, which raised more than $1,000 to benefit the Gila Regional Medical Cancer Center.

There will be two hardball games. The first is for players who graduated from 1995 to 2012. The second is for players who graduated from 1980 to 1994.

Female athletes who graduated from either school will also have an opportunity to get in on the action as there will be an exhibition alumni fast-pitch softball game.

Senior players will also play in a fast-pitch softball game, and it s open to players who attended either school from 1979 and before.

In addition to the alumni games, the ninth pair of inductees to the Grant County Hall of Fame will be honored. Nominations are being accepted for the GCHOF until Aug. 16 for an

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Ninth annual alumni games are set

By Bill Petzold Vassar Pioneer Times

A portrait of Army Sgt. Travis Mills is placed in a prominent position on the sideline as former Vassar High School students stretch out prior to the start of the second half of the alumni football game Saturday, August 4 at Vassar High School.

In a perfect world, Mills could have been on the field at Vassar High School, strapping on the pads for one more game on the gridiron where he was a star athlete for the Vulcans.

Instead, Mills is recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Mills was injured in the line of duty April 10, losing parts of all four limbs during his third tour of Afghanistan when he stepped on an improvised explosive device.

The portrait did little to fill the gap left by the absence of the vivacious, talented and fun-loving Mills. Instead, it served as a tribute to a missing teammate and a dose of reality on the same field where Mills and his teammates dreamed big and worked together for greatness.

I think what (Mills former teammates) were all thinking about and talking about was it was the first time they played a game without him; it was the first time they got pads and he wasnt in the locker room getting dressed, Vassar assistant football coach Bill Germain said. Germain scored the sole touchdown in the Vulcans 6-0 victory over Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port.

A lot of them just thought it was different with him not being around, Germain said. Hes just a big piece of what theyve always connected with football. Football is the smell of the grass, its the pop of the pads, and its Travis doing whatever Travis did around them, saying what he said. So there was still the grass, still the pads, but there was no Travis. It was just very emotional for some of those guys.

Mills former teammates Roger Bacon and Mike Hecht, both Class of 2005, played in the game. Hecht, who has stepped up to help with a number of fund-raising efforts for Mills family, said playing a game without Mills made it a game like no other.

I think everybody wanted to say something about it, and I dont think anybody knew what to say, Hecht said. I said, Ive never been a leader before, I never had to be because Travis was always the leader for my team, I never had to be that guy. I told them, Today Im more than willing to give this a shot if you guys are willing to follow me. It felt good just having that picture of Travis down there, I knew in a way there was at least some part of him down there.

In a moving show of sportsmanship, Laker High donated its entire share of the gate receipts and a bit more to the Mills Family Fund. The Lakers received $300 for their participation. Instead of putting that money towards equipment for their own program, they handed a check for $305 back to Vassar players.

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Travis Mills’ absence casts shadow over Vassar High School alumni game

By JIM EVANS For The Oakland Press

A runner takes part in the inaugural Royal Oak cross country alumni run. The third annual event will be held Thursday, Aug. 16, in Quickstad Park. (Submitted photo)

ROYAL OAK No, the waiver will not be four type-written, single-spaced pages.

Nor will Royal Oak High School boys cross country coaches Ryan Piippo and Dave Barnett be flanked at the third annual alumni run by both ample medical staff and legal representation in the form of the entire Sam Bernstein Law Firm clan.

A waiver? We dont even bother with having people fill out a registration form, said Barnett, laughing.

The intent of the Royal Oak High School cross country alumni run is good will, not litigation. That run will be held Thursday, Aug. 16, at the high school course in Quickstad Park. Race time is 7 p.m., but participants are asked to arrive early to check in.

Runners should gather in the parking lot that is situated at Lexington Boulevard and Marais Avenue.

The Welcome Mat is out for all former Royal Oak Dondero, Royal Oak Kimball and Royal Oak High School runners, as well as interested community members.

To paraphrase the inscription on the Statute of Liberty: "Give Piippo and Barnett your tired, your huddled masses yearning to catch their breath

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Leisurely attitude awaits runners in upcoming Royal Oak event

Before her debut album hit No. 1 in the U.K., and before she started penning tracks with the likes of Alicia Keys and playing to North American arenas with Coldplay, Emeli Sand would enter talent competitions at the medical school where she studied in Glasgow.

Everyone else came out, she recalls. There were breakdancers all med students have a hidden talent. Everyone played something. In my third year, they said, We would prefer if you didnt come back.

Her erstwhile competitors could see that with her sweet and boomingly soulful voice, she was in a different league and yet for years, record labels turned her down. They just didnt see it, she says. They could hear the songs were good, but I dont know that they understood: Theres this med student. Shes not from the BRIT School [a performing-arts academy in London whose alumni include Adele and Amy Winehouse]. Her success, in the end, wasnt your normal pop star story, but hopefully it made [labels] see that if you want something to stick, you have to do something different.

On the morning after an opening set for Coldplay at Torontos Air Canada Centre, Sand smiles as she lounges on a leather couch in the screening room of a Yorkville hotel so posh it has carports at the front and rear to accommodate decoy celebrity vehicles. Her dyed-blond hair done up in a sideways-apostrophe quiff, she wears her glamour with a touch of funkiness, and she hardly comes across as entitled. She speaks in a soft Scots burr about being grateful for every opportunity shes been given thus far, including singing at the Olympics Opening Ceremony, with a rumoured slot in the Closing Ceremony on Aug. 12 as well (her lips are sealed as to specifics, but she allows that being selected means the world to her).

On this continent, she remains much of an unknown quantity: Onstage before Coldplay, she sang as people were still filing into the venue. Her short and winsome set mixed her pop, gospel, R&B and dance-music leanings and seemed to win her some new fans. You just have to come completely unassuming and start afresh, she says.

Sand is the daughter of a Zambian father and a Cumbrian mother, who met in the 80s as students in Sunderland, in northeast England. There, she says, they got a lot of abuse for being together, and [with] their families it was quite difficult as well. I guess thats made me very strong in who I am, knowing what theyve struggled through just because they felt it was right.

The family moved to tiny Alford, in Aberdeenshire, where her father started teaching and directing a secondary school choir. When she was a child, he introduced her to the likes of Anita Baker and Cline Dion all these massive vocalists and her habit of wandering around the house belting out Mariah Carey tunes convinced her parents she had talent. But even though she signed a publishing deal to write songs at age 16, she also had a passion for science; she enrolled in medical school, aiming to be either a psychiatrist or a neurologist. I really was a geek, she says. It was exciting for me! As she studied, her relatives would send recordings of her singing to people in radio and TV. She landed a gig singing a hook on a hit single by rapper Chipmunk, but the video was shot on a day when was writing an exam; unperturbed, the label hired an actress to mime her part.

Sand started shopping herself around to record companies a process so frustrating that it inspired her to write the song Clown, with lyrics about performing for unappreciative people. Labels responses were sadly predictable: Everybody said, Thats a great song for this person and this person, but they didnt want to sign me.

Finally another guest spot with grime artist Wylie convinced Virgin Records to take her on. Having completed a neuroscience B.Sc. (but not the full med-school training), she abandoned her studies and moved to London, taking with her the discipline she had learned from counting cells in microscopes, and an interest in how music affects the brain. As she worked on her own album, she began writing songs for big names such as rapper Tinie Tempah and X Factor superstar Susan Boyle, always aiming to stretch singers out of their comfort zones.

It made me realize that I must keep doing things that are a surprise to me

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Emeli Sandé’s long journey from med school to the Opening Ceremonies

Aug. 7, 2012

Newly appointed School of Veterinary Medicine Dean Mark D. Markel spoke with Inside UW-Madison about his priorities and challenges for Wisconsin veterinary medical education and scholarship. Here are some of his thoughts:

Inside UW: What do you see as your top priorities out of the gate?

Markel: My goal is to carry on the outstanding traditions already in place at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine and to build upon them to enhance the education of our students, the clinical service we provide to our patients and the research we conduct designed to benefit both animal and human health. My top priority will be to engage everyone at the school, and its many alumni, friends, referring veterinarians, and our partners in the agricultural industry to best determine how and where to focus our efforts in the coming decade to maintain and enhance our excellence in teaching, research and clinical service.

Inside UW: What are some of the biggest challenges you expect to face?

Markel: Despite the advances in veterinary medicine in the past 100 years, the profession faces many challenges today and in the coming decades. These challenges have come to the forefront with the budget crises that most states and the federal government continue to face. These have negatively impacted the schools ability to reward our outstanding faculty and staff, to fund our various research programs, and to minimize the debt load of our students. It will be my job to stay focused on recruiting and retaining the most outstanding faculty, staff and students in this environment to help address these issues.

Inside UW: Do you see any new directions or initiatives for the school on the horizon?

Markel: The school needs to remain focused on its core mission of providing outstanding teaching, research and clinical service. My goal will be for the school to critically evaluate each of these priorities and then implement strategies to enhance our leadership in these areas. Its too early to say what those strategies will be but central to any effort we undertake will be to recruit the most outstanding faculty, staff and students possible with the goal that they will serve as the future leaders in the veterinary medical profession.

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New vet med dean discusses his priorities

Helping others is often a thankless job but that isnt the case for two supporters of Sequoia Union High School District who will soon be honored with the Purple Patriot Award.

Don Milhaupt and Mayela Ramirez were selected as Sequoia High School Alumni Association 2011-12 Purple Patriot Award winners, an annual award honoring individuals and organizations that have demonstrated outstanding service or provided a significant benefit to Sequoia Union High School District in Redwood City. Both will be recognized at the annual alumni picnic Saturday, Aug. 18. Each noted how special it is to be recognized. And, even without recognition, each raved about the opportunity to work with and support the Sequoia community.

I love my work. I love my position. I love my community, said 57-year-old Ramirez.

Ramirez grew up in Mexico and came to the United States to seek medical assistance for her son 27 years ago. It started as a 15-day trip. They had some family in California but, once in the Bay Area, her family knew no one and had very little. Now she cant go into a store without running into someone she knows. Ramirez laughed, My husband said we need to move so he can have some privacy.

But Ramirez truly enjoys running into people. She started working with the Sequoia Union High School District as a parent volunteer when her four sons began taking classes at Sequoia High School in the late 90s. She started a volunteer tutoring program at her home, which was supported by the district. She signed on to new opportunities as they became available. In 2000, the school opened the Parent Center with Ramirez as the coordinator.

The Alumni Association wrote, (Ramirez) is an especially important person for Hispanics within the Sequoia community. She performs a vital role by translating and helping parents understand the tools necessary to better help their children in school. She is always available and always trying to help parents with the various activities within the school regardless of whether or not it is her direct responsibility. Many times she works extra hours in order to help parents.

Ramirez verified the last part and noted her kids often lived with her at the school hours after the last bell rang as she offered parents flexible times to fit their schedule. For her, its a chance to give back to people who are in a situation she was in when moving to California knowing few people and needing help.

Being recognized for years of work is emotional for Ramirez who is quick to point out others who support her efforts. One such supporter is her fellow Purple Patriot Milhaupt. Together, Ramirez said, they have worked on the schools adopt-a-family program during the holidays. With help from Second Harvest Food Bank, they supported 50 families in December and during Thanksgiving.

Milhaupt, 59, is passionate about working with students now, but it didnt start that way.

Growing up in Wisconsin, Milhaupt didnt think of doing anything when he grew up until the summer after his sophomore year. At the encouragement of a friend, Milhaupt served as a summer camp counselor for students with special needs. His desire to work with such students became clear.

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School supporters acknowledged by alumni

Do you care about the lack of housing affordability in Australia? Does it matter to you that for the first time in human history more people are suffering from over-nutrition than under-nutrition? Should high school completion rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students be higher on the national agenda?

Five of the University of Sydney's academics and alumni have shared what matters most to them in the fifth month of our What Matters campaign. Now the University is calling on members of the public to cast their votes to find out what matters most to them.

Each month, five new 'Leading Lights' from the University of Sydney community talk about how their work has made a difference to the world.

Leading Lights for August include:

Professor Stephen Simpson, Academic Director, Charles Perkins Centre: Controlling our weight

"Now, for the first time in human history, more people on the planet are suffering the diseases of over-nutrition than are suffering the problems of under-nutrition. So it's estimated 1.6 billion people are either overweight or obese, with associated health consequences."

For Professor Stephen Simpson, Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, an initial interest in locust swarms led to a fascination for human nutrition.

"The locust knows what it needs and eats what it needs. We found that actually locusts, and it transpired all other animals that we've studied, have separate appetites for protein, fat, carbohydrate and they can respond with really quite sophisticated nutritional wisdom," Professor Simpson says.

"We then addressed the question; well why is it that humans seem to have such a lack of nutritional wisdom?"

His current research investigates why people eat what they do and how our modern nutritional environment may circumvent basic nutritional wisdom.

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What matters to you?

The memories flooded David McCormicks room at Coventry High School on Thursday. About 24 hours later, students had a 120-square-foot poster covering two chalkboards nearly filled with goodbyes.

I will always miss you and love you, one comment reads. There will be a huge hole in our hearts, another writes.

McCormick, 50, died this week. Investigators at the county medical examiners office said that toxicology reports in the next few weeks may determine the cause of death but assured that there were no signs of foul play.

Meanwhile, a district grieves.

The outpour of grief has been overwhelming, said Cindy McDonald, Coventry High School principal.

McDonald describes McCormick as an iconic figure at Coventry.

He was Mr. Coventry.

He announced most school events, whether sports or academic related. He was involved in the PTA and the boosters. He was a social studies teacher at the high school and the senior class advisor.

But it was the things he did everyday that she and others will never forget.

Students told McDonald that he would smile when he saw them. Others confessed that it was because of McCormick that they decided to stick it out and attend college.

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Coventry grieves loss of well-loved teacher