General Session & Keynote Speakers

The Best of the Best

The role of Keynote and General Session speakers is to set the tone for the entire meeting. The speakers seek to challenge their listeners, educate them, and most of all, inspire them.

• Set the tone for the entire meeting.
• Educate and inspire their listeners.
• Develop the theme for the Annual Meeting, Celebrating the Past: Claiming the Future.
• Challenge the audience to be their best and to continue improving their quality of care.
• Celebrate common values including putting the needs of others ahead of self, seeking to serve rather than to be served, and ensuring that patients are more important than profits. Remind the attendees that they play a vitally important role in society.
• Remind attendees why they chose a career in home care and hospice, recharging their batteries in order to continue to treat every patient they see like their parents or loved ones.

Sunday, October 15

Hon. Billy Tauzin CEO | PhRMA

Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Former Congressman Billy Tauzin is a populist who embraces causes close to people's hearts. Tauzin learned about building trust during a distinguished public service career, which began in the Louisiana State Legislature. In 1980, he was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he went on to hold several important positions. As chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he promoted a spirit of bipartisan cooperation, fashioned telecommunications policy, pioneered health care reforms, and authored the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill.

Home health care also enjoyed his strong support. In 2003, House-passed legislation was pending, which would have saddled Medicare patients with a co-payment in order to access home health services. This onerous proposal would have caused millions of seniors to bypass home care, and look to hospital emergency rooms with an average cost of $7,000 a day, as their safety net. Chairman Tauzin led the fight to defeat what he called the "sick tax," thereby ensuring continued access for home care services for all Americans. The significance of this proposal was so great that Tauzin was credited with literally saving the Medicare home care benefit.

Chairman Tauzin left Congress midyear in 2004, after waging a successful battle against cancer. He recovered and reentered public service in 2005 as the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, where he is working to develop new miracle drugs to cure a variety of health care problems.

Jim Clifton CEO | Gallup Organization

Opening Keynote Speaker

Jim Clifton is the ultimate public servant. He believes as did Dr. George Gallup, that democracy is about the will of the people, which is why it is essential to ask what the public thinks. He founded an opinion research company after graduating from college, and built it into one of the most  successful firms in the nation, culminating in the acquisition of the Gallup Organization in 1988.

With Clifton as its CEO, Gallup has enjoyed a tenfold increase in its revenues, and expanded from a mainly US-based company to a global presence with 40 offices in 20 countries. It is now one of the world's largest think tanks and providers of management consulting in addition to its opinion research.

Clifton has gained renown as creator of the Gallup Path. This metric-based economic model establishes links between human nature in the workplace, customer engagement, and business outcomes. It's integral to performance management systems in over 500 companies worldwide, and accounts for most of Gallup's total revenues.

Clifton is one of the most caring men and women in America. By definition, caring begins with active listening, thinking about and inquiring after the wants, needs, and opinions of others. Clifton's mission is to help the ten million people who govern and manage the world; to learn what the other six billion are thinking. Each year, this ground-breaking "World Poll" project, collects the opinions of people in over 100 nations to determine the "soul" of a country, city, or culture.

Clifton is also a well-known humanitarian. He supports innumerable causes with his time and money. He is perhaps best known for being the chairman of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, which helps underprivileged children obtain an education.

Legislative and Regulatory Update
NAHC's resident policy and regulatory experts will provide a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute briefing on policy issues impacting your operations today and in the future.
Val J. Halamandaris President William A. Dombi, Esq. Vice President for Law Theresa M. Forster Vice President for Policy
Jeff Kincheloe, JD Director, Government Affairs, U.S. Senate	Mary St. Pierre, MGA, BSN, RN Vice President, Regulatory Affairs	Janet E. Neigh Vice President for Hospice Programs	Yvonne Santa Anna, RN, MS Director, Government Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives

Monday, October 16

Dr. Ruth Constant President/CEO | Beaumont, Port Arthur and Wichita Home Health, Victoria, Texas Chairman of the Board | National Association for Home Care & Hospice

Chairman of the NAHC Board of Directors

Dr. Ruth Constant has been chairman of NAHC's Board of Directors since 2002. She brings  impressive credentials to her work, having trained as a nurse and earned a doctorate in education from Texas A&M.

The keen intellect she brought to her studies helped her advance home care throughout Texas. She developed the state's first Medicare-certified home health agency in 1966 and established two others. She was a founding member of the Texas Association for Home Care and served twice as its president.

NAHC has long benefited from her experience. She was a founding board member of the National Association of Home Health Agencies, which became part of NAHC. Since then, she has served on the NAHC board as a representative of Region VI, and the Home Care Nurses Association.

She has received numerous honors. For example, she was elected a fellow of Foundation for Hospice and Home Care, and was appointed Honorary Trustee of the Caring Institute.

Dr. Constant is also an author and an acclaimed public speaker, who personifies an industry that always strives to treat others as they would like to be treated.

Governor Mitt Romney Governor | State of Massachusetts

Claude D. Pepper Award Winner

Governor Mitt Romney has been recognized for his accomplishments in the worlds of public service and private enterprise.

From 1978 to 1984, Romney was a vice president at Bain & Company, a leading management consulting firm. He helped the company prosper and founded Bain Capitol, a successful venture capitol and investment company.

Romney first attained national fame for turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. In three years, he erased a $379 million deficit, and made the Utah Olympics one of the most successful in history.

Romney, a conservative Republican, defied the odds in 2002, winning the governorship in highly Democratic Massachusetts. In three years, he helped turn the state's economy around. He turned a massive deficit into a surplus of nearly $1 billion dollars.

Reforming education was one of his top priorities. He established a program to award scholarships to the top quarter of the state's high school students, and drafted reforms to boost failing schools.

His crowning achievement to date is the enactment of legislation providing health care for all Massachusetts state citizens. This feat was all the more prodigious because Governor Romney had to win the support of business and the
Democratic legislature.

Governor Romney has played an important role in the National Governors Association (NGA) where he is recognized as a leader. He has supported the NGA's finding that long term care was America's greatest problem, and home care was the nation's best solution. He recently announced a new program to bring home care services to more people in his state.

Because of his heroic acts of public service, Governor Romney was selected to receive NAHC's highest award in 2006, named for the venerable Congressman Claude Pepper. The Pepper Award yearly honors the one person who has done the most to improve the quality of life for aged, infirm, disabled, and dying Americans.

Val J. Halamandaris, JD President | National Association for Home Care & Hospice

The State of Homecare and Hospice in America

Val J. Halamandaris is the founding president of NAHC having served in this position since 1982. He has been described as a visionary and as a renaissance man because he is an attorney, editor, publisher, producer of films, author, and acclaimed public speaker.

The President's speech on the state of home care and hospice in America is considered by many, a highlight of each year's annual meeting. In celebration of NAHC's 25 th Anniversary, he will be speaking in Baltimore on the topic of "Celebrating the Past: Claiming the Future." He began his career as counsel to the Senate Committee on Aging and the House Select Committee on Aging. In 20 years on Capitol Hill, he reshaped the landscape of health care. He helped write the Medicare and Medicaid Home Health Benefit into law, guided the first Medicare Hospice Bill through Congress, helped create federal minimum standards for nursing homes, and established the Office of the Inspector General in the Department of Health & Human Services.

In 1982, Mr. Halamandaris helped make NAHC into one of the country's most respected organizations. He helped found the Center for Health Care Law, a public interest law firm, and created the Frederick Douglass Museum and Hall of Fame for Caring Americans. He unified the home care industry and increased membership from 200 to over 5,000 organizations. Under his guidance, NAHC has helped raise public awareness and acceptance of home care from 10 to more than 80 percent of the US public.

In 1985, he met and was befriended by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who inspired him to create the Caring Institute. The Institute yearly honors adults and young people who personify caring, and holds them out as role models to be emulated by others.

Mike Abrashoff Former Commander of the USS Benfold Best Seller Author of Get Your Ship Together and Founder of Grassroots Leadership, Inc.

Keynote Speaker Captain D. Michael Abrashoff

Captain Mike Abrashoff is the former commander of the USS Benfold. Today, he is dispensing valuable advice to the nation's corporate and political leaders. He knows how to revive an organization with low morale and high turnover. It's a feat he accomplished on the Benfold, once considered a hopeless case by the Navy.

To the surprise of all, the Benfold won the Spokane Award for being the most combat-ready ship in the Pacific fleet. Captain Abrashoff's secret, he later was revealed, is a system called GrassRoots Leadership. It's the process he used to replace command and control with commitment and cohesion by engaging the hearts, minds, and loyalties of the rank and file.

Captain Abrashoff's leadership skills were evident early in his career. Before commanding the Benfold , he was selected for the coveted post of military assistant to Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. In this demanding role, he accompanied Secretary Perry around the world on missions critical to national security. He helped draft the air defense plan for naval forces in the Gulf War. Before that, he was an executive officer with the cruiser, Shiloh, where he helped endorse UN sanctions against Iraq.

These experiences have convinced Captain Abrashoff that top-down bureaucracy is unsuited to our high-speed world of instant communication and information flow. All members of an organization, he contends, should be empowered and expected to take responsibility for achieving, not only
success, but excellence.

Captain Abrashoff is now sharing his ideas for bottom-up leadership as a management consultant and author of It's Your Ship. Today, Captain Abrashoff is helping others to learn the techniques of GrassRoots Leadership. He is a management consultant and the best-selling author of two books, It's Your Ship and Get Your Ship Together.

Tuesday, October 17

Benjamin Solomon Carson, Sr., MD Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery | Johns Hopkins Children's Hospital Surgeon Author, and Philanthropist

Opening Keynote Speaker

In 1987, Dr.Benjamin Carson attained world fame when he was the first surgeon to successfully separate Siamese twins attached at the back of the head. He has since performed similar operations on other sets of twins. The success he has achieved in this very difficult area has astonished
colleagues and patients alike.

His achievements have led to widespread acclaim. CNN and Time have listed him among the nation's foremost physicians. The Library of Congress has honored him as one of "89 Living
Legends." He holds 40 honorary doctorates, and serves on the President's Council on Bioethics.

Dr. Carson's accomplishments are all the more amazing considering he began life as a hot-tempered, underachieving, inner-city youth. But his mother, who had only a third-grade education, challenged him to strive for excellence. Honoring his mother, he became a star pupil, and went on to fulfill her dream of his becoming a doctor.

Dr. Carson is a highly religious person who gives credit for his blessings to a higher power. He also believes that it is important for those who have achieved to give back to others. Accordingly, he established and is president of the Carson Scholars Fund, which recognizes young people for outstanding academic and humanitarian accomplishments. He co-founded Angels of the OR, an organization which raises funds to cover the medical expenses of needy families that are not covered by insurance.

The ideals that brought him from the ghetto to glory are summed up in three best-selling books, including Think Big, which encourages young people to study hard, help others, and always follow their dreams.

Louis J. Burns Vice President and General Manager | Digital Health Group for the Intel Corporation

Farnsworth Award Winner for the Advancement of Home Care Technology

Louis J. Burns is vice president and general manager of Intel Corporation’s Digital Health Group. As such, he is one of the most respected experts in the world on the subject of information technology.

Previously, Burns was vice president and general manager of Platform Components Group, the primary producer of core logic and integrated graphics chipsets for Intel. Burns also served as vice president and director of Intel’s Information Technology Group for four years, supplying computing capabilities to Intel sites worldwide. In addition, he spent 12 years in Intel’s sales, marketing, and application groups.

Today Mr. Burns is using this expertise to focus on solutions for health care research, diagnostics, productivity, and personal care. Under his leadership, Intel continues its Precision Biology Research to advance the use of sensor technology for diagnosing disease. He also oversees Intel’s Proactive Health Research to explore the ways remote health monitoring can improve life for patients at home.

Because of his pioneering work in developing technology to help seniors and disabled individuals remain independent in their own homes, NAHC has selected Mr. Burns to be the first recipient of the Philo T. Farnsworth Award for the Advancement of Home Care Technology.

Cal Ripken Baseball Legend, Author and Humanitarian

Closing Keynote Speaker

Cal Ripken, Jr. is a baseball great whose dad coached him to give his best both on and off the field. Baseball's "Iron Man" made history by breaking Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played.  In 21 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles, Cal came to embody character, endurance, and integrity.

Since retiring from baseball in 2001, Cal has given back in full measure to the city of Baltimore, which supported him throughout his long career. The extent of Rikpen's philanthropy is nothing short of amazing. For example, he established the Johns Hopkins ALS Cal Ripken Jr./Lou Gehrig Fund to support research on the disease that stole the great athlete's life; the Kelly and Cal Ripken Jr. Foundation which has funded the Baltimore Reads Ripken Learning Center.

He has also created the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation in memory of his dad. The Foundation teaches life lessons through baseball to disadvantaged kids, and provides them with life-changing experiences. The Foundation refurbished fields throughout Maryland, gives generously to Boys and Girls Clubs, and teamed with Nike to donate over $1 million worth of baseball equipment to America's schools. The Foundation also holds a kids' essay contest in which 25 winners and their dads join Cal for a baseball clinic and minor league game.

The point of these activities with young people is to build character through baseball. Ripken is the best-selling author of a 2004 book called, Play Baseball the Ripken Way, which covers all aspects of the game, including the Ripken philosophy combining fun, hard work, tenacity, unselfishness, and teamwork, helping readers to be winners both in baseball and in life.

Wednesday, October 17

William Novelli CEO | AARP

Arthur Flemming Public Policy Award Winner

Bill Novelli is CEO of AARP, the membership organization which represents more than 40 million people over the age of 50. He has made AARP not only the largest, but the most respected association in Washington. He is known nationwide for his advocacy as well as his philanthropy.

He joined AARP in January 2000 as Associate Executive Director, Public Affairs. Prior to that, he was president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids; he continues today as
chairman of their board.

Previously, he was executive vice president of CARE, the world's largest private relief and development organization ($450 million budget, 11,000 employees, 40 developing countries, plus fund raising and advocacy in the US). He was responsible for all operations in the US and abroad. CARE helps impoverished people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America through programs in health, agriculture, environmental protection and small business support. CARE also provides emergency relief to people in need.

Earlier, Mr. Novelli co-founded and was president of Porter Novelli, now one of the world's largest public relations agencies and part of the Omnicom Group, an international marketing communications corporation. Although he retired from the firm in 1990 to pursue a second career in public service, he was recently named one of the 100 most influential public relations professionals of the 20th century by the industry's leading publication.

Mr. Novelli began his career at Unilever, a worldwide-packaged goods marketing company, moved to a major ad agency, and then served as Director of Advertising and Creative Services for the Peace Corps. In this role, he helped direct recruitment efforts for the Peace Corps, VISTA, and social involvement programs for older Americans.

In recognition of his long and distinguished career in public service, NAHC has selected him to receive its Arthur Flemming Public Policy Award for 2006.

Keynote & General Session Speakers

The Honorable John Glenn Former Senator, Astronaut, Author

John Glenn was one of the first seven astronauts in the US space program. In 1962, he became the first American to orbit the earth. It was a historic feat brought to life in Tom Wolfe's bestseller The Right Stuff .

Wolfe wrote at length about Glenn's zeal, enthusiasm, and integrity. These are qualities Glenn has shown in many fields. He's never let down the millions who hailed him for giving his country's spirit new wings. He has reached for the stars as a scientist, decorated fighter pilot, philanthropist, and senator for Ohio.

During 24 years in the US Senate, he pleaded for peace and nuclear non-proliferation. He supported women's rights, equal opportunity, and quality education.

His greatest contributions came as a member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. He stamped out fraud against the elderly and fought mandatory retirement laws. He opposed the imposition of coinsurance on Medicare home healthbeneficiaries and warred against freezes on reimbursement.

Glenn took another giant step for seniors when he joined the Space Shuttle Discovery Crew. In 1998, he became the oldest human ever to venture into space.

Glenn has also forged new frontiers in philanthropy. As founder of the Mercury 7 Program, he has coordinated appearances for astronauts and sponsored college scholarships. His
support has allowed Give Kids The World to send terminally-ill children and their families on week-long vacations to Disney World.

Glenn is a true American hero. Whether in space or on earth, he's always shown he has the right stuff!