Board of Directors
Sandra Wallace Blaydow
Gloria Bohrer
Educator
Gloria Garcia Bohrer is an educator by training and profession. In 2003, she retired from service as the Director of Public Relations and Education for OneLegacy, where she was responsible for the implementation of public information and education programs in hospitals, schools and communities served by OneLegacy.
Ms. Bohrer continues to serve as a United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) committee member. Along with her involvement in and dedication to community outreach, she continues to make presentations to a variety of audiences regarding organ transplantation and donation.
William Chertok
Earle E. Crandall, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S., F.I.C.S.
Neurosurgeon, Earle E. Crandall, Inc.
Dr. Crandall is a neurosurgeon whose training background includes the Mayo Clinic and Foundation. His research towards the Ph.D. degree led to various awards and recognition. After postdoctoral training in Paris, France, Dr. Crandall served in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant commander and was attached for a time to the Third Marine Division. He received the Navy Commendation Medal and Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for this service.
He has served as chief of neurosurgery at St. Vincent’s Medical Center and continues his teaching appointments at UCLA as clinical associate professor both in the departments of neurosurgery and neurobiology (neuroanatomy).
He continues the practice of neurosurgery as senior consultant and Independent Medical Examiner, and his special interests relate to neural and organ regeneration.
Dr. Crandall received the prestigious Officer of Academic Palms decoration from the French Government for outstanding achievement in science and is involved with many civic and cultural organizations.
William Gallio
Kidney Recipient
William Gallio was born in Oxnard, Calif. and moved with his family to Fullerton, Calif. in 1956. Mr. Gallio’s father started a rubbish business with the help of his sons, and in 1981, Mr. Gallio and his identical twin brother Bob took over the company and ran it until 1996 when they sold it to Republic Industries.
Mr. Gallio was actively involved in many rubbish-related organizations. He was president of the Detachable Container Corporation (Nationwide) from 1993-1995. He served on the Board of Directors for the National Solid Waste Management Association (NSWMA) for 6 years and for 10 years served on the Waste Haulers (National) Board of Directors. He was also president of the Waste Hauler Council for 2 years. In 1993, Mr. Gallio was the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for NSWMA, and in 1995 was inducted into the NSWMA Hall of Fame.
Mr. Gallio has also been involved in local civic organizations. He served on the Fullerton Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors for Energy Resource Management Committee for 15 years and was a Fullerton Rotary Club member from 1980-1996. He served on the Saint Jude Five as an Advisory Board Member of St. Jude Hospital for 10 years.
In 1985, he received a kidney transplant, and as a result became involved in transplantation issues, including joining OneLegacy’s Board of Directors.
Mr. Gallio has been married to his wife Karen for 30 years; they have two daughters and two grandchildren. His hobbies are cars, boats and motorcycles.
Rafael Mendez, M.D., F.A.C.S. (Secretary and Treasurer)
President, Mendez Transplant & Urological Medical Group
Dr. Rafael G. Mendez, is Co-Medical Director of the Multi-Organ Transplantation Program at St. Vincent Medical Center, and is Professor of Urology and Director, Renal Transplant Program, USC School of Medicine; President of the Urological Consultants Medical Group; and a Board Member of Healthcare Partners Medical Group. He is a member of the Board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the USC School of Medicine Salerni Collegium, and Co-Founder of OneLegacy.
He has served as the chairman of St. Vincent Medical Center’s Department of Renal Transplantation; Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Urology Section; California Hospital Medical Center’s Division of Urology; the Central Area Teaching Hospital Association; and as a consultant to the Saudi-Arabian Health Ministry and the University of Autonomous School of Medicine in Guadalajara. He has traveled from Edinburgh to Singapore lecturing on the advances in transplantation and organ preservation.
Robert Mendez, MD, FACS
President & Chairman of the Board
Dr. Méndez is a tenured Professor of Urology and Surgery at the University Of Southern California Keck School Of Medicine and was Chairman of the Multi-Organ Transplant programs at USC University Hospital and St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles.
He has served as President of United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) as well as President of Los Angeles Urological Society, the Southern California Transplant Society, and the Western Association of Transplant Surgeons. He is co-founder, President and Chairman of OneLegacy, the largest organ procurement agency in the U.S. and co-founder, President and Chairman of the Mendez National Institute of Transplantation, an internationally recognized non-profit transplant research organization. He was appointed by the President of the United States to sit on the National Institutes of Health Committee overseeing Xenotransplantation and has been a consultant for the Ministry of Health for Saudia Arabia and Dubai. He has addressed both the National Italian Parliament and the Japanese Transplant Society to help formulate national transplant laws. Among many other prestigious awards, Dr. Mendez was awarded the prestigious Malpighian Award by the Italian Transplant and Nephrological Society and is author of more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 book chapters.
Together with his team of institute transplant surgeons, Dr. Méndez has performed more than 5,000 kidney transplants in the past thirty years. Over the years, Dr. Mendez has traveled widely, performing transplant procedures on needy patients abroad and providing help for the development of transplantation facilities in many countries in South America, the Middle East and North Africa.
Thomas Mone (ex-officio)
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President, OneLegacy
Tom Mone is the CEO of OneLegacy, the US’s largest organ recovery agency, serving 19 million people, more than 200 hospitals and 12 transplant centers. OneLegacy, annually recovers approximately 1,200 organs for transplant from 400 donors, a 60% increase in the past 6 years, and 1,800 tissue donors. Tom has led the development of the first industry standard of web-based organ placement, prospective NAT/PCR testing of all donors since 2004 and Chagas testing since 2007, as well as paid media advertising and a 100% multilingual family care staff to increase ethnic community donation from 45% to 75%, and has overseen the founding of the Donate Life Rose Parade Float that has 60+ national and international partners that has inspired documented 15-20% seasonal increases in donation rates by communicating the value and need for donation to over 300 million people. Tom served as President of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) in 2007-08 and is a founding member of AOPO’s Multicultural Council; he is also an AOPO Accreditation Surveyor and Committee member.
Previously, Mr. Mone was President and CEO of the San Gabriel Valley Medical Center and Mr. Mone began his career as a Presidential Management Intern and a Budget Analyst for the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he received the Secretary’s Award.
Mr. Mone received his Master of Science degree from the University of California, Irvine and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Darline P. Robles, Ph.D.
Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools
Darline P. Robles, Ph.D., was appointed County Superintendent of Schools by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in June, 2002. During her inaugural year at the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), she confronted the immense fiscal challenges caused by the state’s budget crisis, overseeing the effort to maintain quality services to districts, schools, and students during a time of diminishing resources.
To reach out to the diverse school districts and communities that make up Los Angeles County, Robles uses every communication tool at her disposal—personal meetings, visits to districts, and appearances at major events, along with the technological assists of e-mail, videoconferencing, and streaming video. She puts special emphasis on creating collaborative relationships with superintendents and her staff and on finding cooperative solutions to problems.
Before assuming her current post, for seven years Robles was chief of the Salt Lake City School District, where she was successful in closing the achievement gap and significantly reducing the dropout rate. Earlier, the native Californian was superintendent of the Montebello Unified School District in Los Angeles County, where she began as a teacher, then coordinator of bilingual and bicultural education. But, as Robles points out, she actually started her 30-year education career as a teacher intern with LACOE.
Robles received her Bachelor of Arts degree in history at California State University, Los Angeles; her Master’s Degree in education from Claremont Graduate School; and her Doctorate in education policy and administration from the University of Southern California.
J. Thomas Rosenthal, M.D.
Professor, Urology Chief Medical Officer, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Associate Vice Chancellor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Rosenthal is a urologist and was formerly the Director of the Kidney Transplant Program at UCLA. His accomplishments included substantial growth in the clinical program, achieving competitive NIH funding for clinical trials in transplantation to UCLA, and ultimately achieving research funding in excess of two million dollars. He received his M.D. from Duke in 1974 and completed his residency at the Lahey Clinic. He previously served as Program Director in Urology at UCLA, Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs and Executive Vice-Chair in the Department of Surgery at UCLA, and Director of the UCLA Medical Group before assuming his current roles. He is a past officer in a number of transplant societies.
Dr. Rosenthal received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; attended medical school at Duke University, Durham, N.C.; interned at University of Virginia Hospital, Charlottesville, Va.; and performed residencies at University of Virginia Hospital, Charlottesville, Va., and Lahey Clinic Foundation, Boston, Mass.
Senator Art Torres (Ret.)
Vice Chairman, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Senator Art Torres (Ret.) serves as the vice chair of the Governing Board, the ICOC, which oversees California’s stem cell institute, CIRM. As a colon cancer survivor, he also serves as a patient advocate on the board. He served twenty years in the California State Legislature, during which as a state senator, he led efforts in Hanoi to release Vietnamese prisoners from "education camps," worked with Soviet Jewish refugee efforts in the former Soviet Union, and helped draft Pope John Paul II’s environmental message in 1989.
He created the most successful anti-high school dropout law in California's history, initiated the first National Japanese Museum, and co-authored legislation that created the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. As Chairman of the Senate Toxics Committee, he co-authored the unprecedented and extremely successful California Clean Water Drinking Act, Proposition 65.
In 1996, he was elected Chairman of the California Democratic Party and is credited with reinstating financial and political stability to the nation’s largest state party. He retired in 2009, as the nation's longest serving chair.
He serves on the Board of Governance of Heal the Bay (overseeing the future of Santa Monica Bay and environs), and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Latino Community Foundation. He is the co-author of "BABALU", a Latino celebrity cookbook with proceeds dedicated to the National Association of Breast Cancer Organizations.
He holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California at Davis. He also held an appointment as a John F. Kennedy teaching fellow at Harvard University.
Richard Towse
Donor Father
Dick Towse became involved with the organ donation program after his son David died in an auto accident. He was deeply moved by a letter of appreciation that his daughter-in-law received from the OneLegacy coordinator in Bakersfield. He appeared on a local show called "You Be the Doctor" to discuss organ donation, then on a television program with Drs. Robert and Rafael Mendez. After meeting the Drs. Mendez, he was invited to serve on the OneLegacy Board to represent donor families. He believes his time on the Board has helped him and his family voice a unique point of view and deal with the never-ending grief of losing a loved one.
He has also served on the Board of Directors for the Epilepsy Society of Kern County and the Kern County Autism Center, Inc.
Mr. Towse is a retired Principal of the Blair Learning Center for Children with Multiple Handicaps. Previously, he was an elementary and junior high school teacher.
He has done post-graduate work at the State University of New York at Oneonta, the University of Southern California, Murray State University and California State University in Bakersfield. He received his Masters Degree from Fresno State University and his Bachelors Degree from Springfield College.
