Board of Directors
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Lizette Dunay Lizette is co-founder of Let’s Cure CP. She is a graduate of University of Florida where she got her B.A. in Economics and a minor in Spanish. For the past twelve years Lizette has worked in the medical and biologics field in a sales and business development capacity. For the past three years her career has focused on the area of regenerative medicine. |
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Dave Dunay Dave is co-founder of Let¹s Cure CP. A native Floridian, He is a graduate of both the Georgia Institute of Technology (MS) and the University of Florida (BA). For the past fifteen years Dave has worked in the commercial real estate information and software industries, with a focus on finance and retail. Dave has been active in the community and has served on several neighborhood associations in the Atlanta area. He sought to help start Lets Cure CP due to his son’s diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. He has a deep desire and passion to help other families in the hope of having a better tomorrow for their children and loved ones living with CP. |
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Ed Drambel Ed has been selling implantable medical devices since 1992. In 2004, Ed founded Emerging Medical Technologies and is the sole owner. Ed has been working with clinical studies in the medical field since 2006. Ed has a BS in Marketing from Penn State University. He is the father of three children, Will, Katie and John and husband to Maurie Drambel since 1999. In 2004, his twins were born and his life took on a new meaning. John was diagnosed with multiple acute micro infarcts in various parts of his brain due to apnea and bradycardia. Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with CP. Ed’s strong background in medical sales started back to 1991 with Biotronik, Inc. (pacemakers and defibrillators), where he is a current independent distributor for Biotronik as well as Medicomp Event Recorders. He has grown the Atlanta, Georgia market from $0 sales in 1991 to multiple millions on an annual basis. Ed’s journey is not only helping his child overcome Cerebral Palsy, but also help the other 800,000 people in the US who battle this on a daily basis. |
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Marie Drambel Maurie Drambel graduated with a BS degree in English from University of Georgia. She started her career in marketing and advanced to an Executive Assistant for a Major Corporate travel corporation. She currently holds the most difficult position of her career, raising three beautiful children, including John Drambel.
Maurie is a co-founder of Let’s Cure CP. She is excited to help in the cause to helping children with CP improve their quality of life, so that other mothers of CP children will not spend the majority of their day planning their child’s next doctor appointment, surgery, PT, OT and Speech appointment. |
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Mary Schneider As a result of her own family’s needs, Mary Schneider became a vocal champion and internationally recognized advocate for stem cell treatment of children with neurological injury, and for the vital importance of cord blood banking. Her son was one of the initial pediatric patients at Duke University in 2005, where he was treated for Cerebral Palsy with a specialized transplant using his own cord blood. Since then, Mary has initiated and mobilized patients for multiple studies at Duke University regarding the use of cord blood to treat a range of pediatric neurological brain injuries. She counsels parents on the procedure and possible treatment results, and to date, over 200 children have received this treatment at Duke University. She also proposed and assisted in drafting language for the Illinois Cord Blood Banking Bill (SB 0019), and testified before the Illinois House and Senate. The Bill passed and was signed into law in August 2007 and now serves as model legislation for other states. |
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Shari Dexter Shari Dexter is a native Washingtonian and as a result grew up getting involved in the Washington political arena by working on political campaigns, fundraising for progressive non-profits and teaching other about the importance of political activism. She is most proud of her work collaborating on a number of programs designed to help kids with special needs including a youth-driven media campaign; planning a medical symposium on current stem cell treatments for parents and professionals with the Kennedy Krieger Institute at John’s Hopkins; lobbying on Capitol Hill to educate legislators about the benefits of saving cord blood for future medical treatments; helping plan a gala to raise thousands of dollars for the March of Dimes; and pushing legislation focused on the inclusion of special needs kids in the classroom. Her professional work focuses on her creativity. Shari has helped shaped the agenda for successful fundraising and promotional programs in both the business and political arenas. In addition, she has designed special events that have run the gamut… from corporate campaigns to political galas at national party conventions to academic lecture series. Her approach uses real strategic communications, branding and marketing methods to make every event a memorable occasion while adding an ounce of fun. She is married and a mother of three — all under age 10. Her oldest, Timmy, was born with cerebral palsy and she has two younger girls, Abby and Caitlin. Her son’s medical condition has challenged her to tirelessly look for treatments to help him progress, strive and grow as any other child his age. She is constantly developing new relationships with other parents, medical professionals, therapists, and concerned individuals to share ideas and support each other. Her hope is that someday she will be able to help not only her son, but other children with disabilities, to find treatments beyond what is readily available. |
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Andrea Proser Andrea Proser has over 15 years experience in communications and public relations, countless nights and years in volunteer work, and 9 years as the mother of a child with CP. In 2001, Ian was diagnosed in utero with hydrocephalus and Dandy-Walker Variant, and was shunted immediately at birth. Andrea and her husband Eric did not know what to expect of their newborn, as Ian’s hydrocephalus masked the potential of his developing brain. What they got was a kind, good-natured, inspiring child who – even after double-digit shunt revisions at 3 years old and frustrating hemiparesis – acknowledges his challenges but refuses to let them interfere with his love of learning, considerable Nintendo DSI skills and admirable desire to succeed. Andrea and Eric became even more versed in health care and advocacy when their daughter Alexa, now 5, was diagnosed with Autism. Andrea is a passionate advocate for children with special needs, and she actively engages in fundraising and awareness initiatives for CP, hydrocephalus and autism. Professionally, since 2008, Andrea has served as the director of Tumbling Waters Retreat & Conference Center at Ramah Darom, overseeing all aspects of operations. Previously, she worked at Atlanta’s Cox Communications for 10 years in roles spanning employee engagement and reputation management. During that time, she was elected to several industry leadership positions in programming, fundraising and sponsorship, and earned national recognition for writing and strategic communications. |
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Kevin Metzger Kevin Metzger is father to Haley, Abby and Isaac. Haley his oldest was born 8 weeks early and had a stage one brain bleed but was thought to be okay. When at six months Haley was still not rolling over Kevin’s wife Melanie convinced the doctors to allow them to pursue therapy. When Haley was 1 the therapists said they believed Haley had more significant issues than just delays. It was then that Melanie and Kevin took Haley to the neurologist and after an MRI Haley was diagnosed with CP. Since that time Kevin and Melanie worked with Haley to help her achieve as much as she could and Kevin began a blog MySpellingSucks.com to capture the challenges of raising a child with a disability and to discuss how his learning disability gave special insights into the child raising process. The blog has developed to cover inspirational stories and is even launching Haley’s book “I Am Not Weird” written after a girl at school said she walked weird. Kevin has a second blog called TheDADvocateProject.com which is a research project attempting to define this current generation of dads. This project was started after Kevin won the 2009 East Cobber Father of the Year award for an article, Seven Years he had written on MySpellingSucks.com. The intention of the project is to help frame how today’s dad approaches his roll in the home as an income earner and caretaker, or often as the primary caretaker. Professionally Kevin is a Business Systems Architect for MailExpress. He has an MBA from Georgia State University and a BS in Computer Information Systems from Clemson University. Kevin has over ten years of experience in applying automated solutions to business processes and problems in areas as diverse as Marketing, to logistics, to social media and web marketing. Kevin has worked with IBM, UPS, Delta, Grady Hospital and Sage, and Sage Health care. |
