Corey Dubin came to the COTT Board in late 1992. He was, at that time chair of the Santa Barbara County HIV/AIDS Ryan White Title II Consortia. He served in that role for 5 years and was also appointed to the State of California State-wide Title II Working group. In 1993 he was also appointed to the California Community Planning Working Group. The CPWG was tasked to draft California's HIV/AIDS Prevention Plan for the 1990's. He served on that Group until 1999 and served as one of the Co-Chairs of the Working Group for one year. Previous to the HIV/AIDS Hemophilia epidemic he was a sucessful radio and print journalist covering Latin America and US foreign Policy. He also served in the mid 1980's as News & Public Affiars Director for KPFK, Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles. He is a person with severe hemophilia who has three daughters and six grandchildren. Dubin is a 22 years survivor of HIV and HCV. He an Faviana currently reside in Goleta California.

Mary Lou is the longest serving COTT Board member. She has served as Co-VP for the last 6 years and is an integral part of the COTT family and history. Her son Matt was an early founding member; her other son Leo, was the co-founder of COTTWEST. Mary Lou also manages the Murphy Fund, COTT's emergency community support fund. She lives in Massachusetts and is active in the New England area. She is also one of the co-leaders of the move to establish a physical memorial for the Hemophilia AIDS/blood epidemic in the State of Massachusetts.

Terry MacNeill came to the Board of Directors in 1998 at our retreat in Sedona Arizona. Ever since, she has been an active and important player in the direction and actions of COTT. She has run a pediatric HIV/AIDS Foundation for years and is active in New England. Terry is the one of the co-leaders working to establish a memorial to the thousands who were sacrificed in the AIDS/blood epidemic in Hemophilia.

Checole came to the COTT Board in 1997. She had worked for the organization previously to joining the Board. She was seriously involved in the initiatives of COTT in the second half of the 1990s. From Ricky Ray to the Blood Safety & Availibilty Committee and its workings, Checole worked hard to further the community's agenda. She is the proud Mother of two children and Corey Dubin is her father. She brings to the table her experiences growing up within a hemophilia family as well as the experience of the 1990s: grass roots health care organizing in a chronic disease community devastated by HIV/AIDS.

Dick Valdez was a founding member of the California based Hemophilia HIV/Peer Association. Dick, along with Michael Rosenberg, Peer's president, had a great deal of community impact in through early to mid 1990s. At that time it was decided that Dick's joining the COTT Board of Directors would facilitate better communication and joint actions between the two community based organizations. Upon Michael's passing into the spirit world, Peer's resources were folded into COTT through the work of Dick Valdez. Dick sacrificed two sons to this preventable nightmare and has worked tirelessly to honor his son's and ensure that this does not occur again. Dick also served as Treasurer during the mid 1990s.

Rick Nagler is a person with severe hemophilia who most recently lived in Colorado. Orginally from the D.C. area, Rick was an active and engaged community member throughout the 1990s and beyond. Rick worked on numerous community projects and initiatives and in 2001 became a member of the COTT Board. Unfortunately we lost Rick in 2006.

Dr. Richard Colvin has been a COTT board member for 11 years. He is 39 years old and has severe Hemophilia and has been living with HIV and HCV for at least 25 years. Dr. Colvin is an Infectious Disease Physician and Immunologist in Boston, MA. He is married and spends his free time bringing his 3 young children to daycare, school, and hockey practices. In the mid 1990s Rich was appointed by FDA Commissioner David Kessler to the Special Advisory Committee on CJD.  In 2009 he was appointed to the FDA's Blood Products Advisory Committee for a three-year term.  He has chaired COTT's Medical Advisory Committee and writes on treatment issues.

Larry Allen came to the COTT Board in 1999, at which time he was a member of the U.S. Health & Human Services Department's Advisory Committee On Blood Safety & Availability. Larry was appointed to bring the Sickle Cell community to the regulatory table. COTT soon became aware of the lack of blood safety education or grass roots information in the Sickle Cell community. Larry Allen was then asked to join the COTT Board of Directors, and has remained an active member since then.  Larry has two children afflicted by Sickle Cell. He continues to be a vibrant member of the COTT landscape.

Ed Maslak with his wife Pam have been a member of the COTT family since 1993. They are survivors having lost their only child in 1988 to AIDS/HCV. Ed has served on many committees and was active in COTT's effort to secure passage of the Ricky Ray Relief Act. He has also served as treasurer of COTT. He remains active, advocating for a safer blood supply and fair practice in pricing, distribution and choice in the supply of factor. He is also the voice for Factor IX in COTT, as his son had severe Factor IX deficiency.

 

Greg joined COTT in the early 1990s and quickly became a leading HIV/AIDS treatment Activist in very short time frame. He also became the editor of COTT's Journal, The Common Factor, creating a leader in the global HIV/AIDS infected community. The Common Factor became a voice for people seeking justice for persons with HIV/AIDS. It also became a prime source for treatment information and activism. Greg was also a leading and influential member of COTT's Board of Directors. He also sat on an HIH advisory committee for clinical trials and spoke at many important national and international conferences about HIV/AIDS and living through the community's devastation from HIV/AIDS. In 1998 Greg left us and jpassed into the spirit world. Certainly his influence in COTT remains strong and his words continue to remain audible for those of us surviving the nightmare.
Greg Haas Presente'. 

Leo Murphy came to COTT through his brother, Matt Murphy, one of the first to join Jonathan and Tom, and through his working in founding, COTTWEST with then COTT Vice-President, and now President, Corey Dubin. Leo, a hollywood Prop Master by trade, Leo was a tireless organizer in the Southern California hemophilia community. He spoke at events, conducted workshops and was a Peer Advocate for those infected with HIV/AIDS. he was a gentle and lovabler human being who threw himslef completely into the struggle for justice and accountibility. he was active in the COTT Board and was another example of an active and empowered community member. In 1995 Leo passed into the spirit world; anorther loved brother, struck in his prime, by corporations and government who failed to protect the end users of blood products thereby taking the very lives of people like Leo Murphy. His mother, Mary Lou Murphy is currently COTT Co-Vice-President. Leo Murphy Presente'

Jim was an effective and well spoken member of the COTT Board. He, like many of the original members, was from the greater Boston area and was a person with hemophilia and HIV. Jim was a valued member and was very representative of the community-at-large. Jim was with us through some of the most difficult times and passed into the spirit world during the latter part of the mid 1990s. He was strong, yet also gentle and respectful. In COTT's world Jim was a human being.
Jim Barrett Presente' 

Phil Savoie was as grass roots an individual as you could find. We could not have created a better example of a grass roots communty member appreciated by all who came into contact with him. Phil was a wonderful and vibrant huaman being whose commitment to the community was unwavering and tireless. He was one of those human beings who could reach out and impact others just by being himself. Honest, to the point, never circuitious or indirect, Phil always said just exactly what was on his mind. A criticvally valued member of the COTT Board and the Board Spiritual. Phil Savoie presente'

Tim Haas, the younger brother of Greg Haas, not only was a board member, he also provided the layout for the Common Factor, our quarterly journal during the 1990s. He brought the energy of youth combined with his experiences living with HIV and HCV to the table. Tim also provided the layout work for our communiques' and all other publications emanating from COTT. He is and will always be sorey missed by the COTT family. Tim was a strong and loving fellow, who also brought a sense of humor to the work combined with a strong work ethic.
Tim Haas Presente'. 

Based in COTT headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, Dave Cavenaugh came to COTT in 1998 and, bringing his years of Capital Hill experience to bear, was an important part of the Ricky Ray Hemophilia Relief Fund Act becoming law. Dave has years of experience in community health centers, Ryan White and other AIDS legislation and programs, and federal health care programs and initiatives. He currently coordinates COTT’s legislative and regulatory initiatives, projects and programs while co-producing our bi-weekly Washington Update. He can be reached at our D.C. office by email or at 1-(800) 488-2688 (488-COTT).

Based in the area where COTT was founded and has its historical roots, greater Boston, John came to COTT in 1995 with the daunting task of having to attempt to fill the shoes previously occupied by founding member Tom Fahey. Fahey, a social worker by trade, set the standard for community based peer advocacy and support work. John has done an excellent job of meeting the Fahey standard. John has also placed his stamp on the program, bringing to bear years of work in the Quaker community as well as the peace movement and other struggles for change, human rights and social justice. John is known throughout the entire hemophilia community and has been a solid advocate for many individuals and families. He can be reached at our Peer Advocacy & Support toll-free line 1-(800) 582-3803.

Jonathan was a successful businessman/builder who joined the public non-profit sector to shepherd COTT from 1989 through 1996 as the organization’s first President.

He worked like hand in glove with Tom Fahey, the other CO-Founder. Jonathan, the more political animal of the two, brought 1960s values and principles that were deeply influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and especially the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, SNCC. He brought the experience and the values associated with that experience to the founding of COTT. The ideal, in the model of Paulo Friere: A community, on the move, asserting control over its own destiny, transitioning from being the object of an oppressive structure/situation to being the subject of changing that situation. In essence being the agents of one's own change both individually and as a community.

A person with severe hemophilia, Jonathan passed away in 2008. His vision for COTT and the community is alive in the work of the Organization.

 

Tom Fahey was the other original co-Founder of the Committee of Ten Thousand. He and his partner Fran were integral members of the COTT team and the Board. Tom brought a clear and unwavering commitment to establishing community based social work in the hemophilia community; A grass roots approach to wellness and mental health in our community. That approach and commitment became and continues to be at the root of COTT's perspective and its initiatives and actions. The Fahey imprint remains an integral component of the Committee of Ten Thousand. Tom will always be sorely missed both within COTT and in the community at-large. He was the gentle bear of COTT and the core of our psycho-social programs and initiatives.

Tom was also a person with severe hemophilia, who also lived in the greater Boston area. Tom was a social worker who managed HIV/AIDS caseworkers. Tom was Treasurer and a Board member until 1997. Tom passed into the spirit world in 2002 from complications stemming from his HIV/hepatitis C co-infection. Tom Fahey Presente' 

Tom and Jonathan Wadleigh were community leaders who shaped the original philosophy, structure and direction of the Committee of Ten Thousand. Jonathan and Tom ensured that COTT was rooted in the grass roots hemophilia community. They both viewed COTT as the grass roots community voice of the growing number of persons with hemophilia infected by the AIDS/blood epidemic, which was at the height of devastating the entire hemophilia community. Jonathan and Tom understood that through effective grass roots community organizing, the hemophilia community could begin to respond to this preventable nightmare.

COTT, under Jonathan and Tom’s direction emerged from the pain, loss and destruction of the AIDS/blood epidemic. It emerged within a community physically, emotionally and economically devastated by an infection rate of over 50 percent of the community by 1989 when COTT was founded in the Boston area. COTT was/is peopled by the very individuals and families struggling to cope with this real-life nightmare. A good example of this is both Fran Fahey and Joanne Wadleigh, the respective spouses of Tom and Jonathan, served lengthy terms as members of the COTT Board of Directors. They were community leaders and activists in their own right and together with their husbands were strong examples of the empowered hemophilia marriage/relationship.

Tom Fahey and Jonathan rooted their organizing efforts in the context of their favorite phrase; Action=Life. This quickly became the ethos of the Committee of Ten Thousand.

Jonathan and Tom also placed COTT within the larger context of the national and global HIV/AIDS pandemic, instilling the perspective that all persons infected or affected by HIV/AIDS were important and that HIV/AIDS was and is a global human rights struggle.

They each brought the sum of their own history and perspective to the early COTT table. Tom, a child of the 1960s, brought community based, cooperative principles and values in the service of local support and advocacy, which was the structure of the early COTT. Tom also brought his lengthy experience in social work and pyscho-social programs steeped in his commitment to community based and controlled programs and initiatives.

Early in COTT's existence the emerging synthesis between advocacy and support, Tom's side of the equation, and the political/social justice component, as articulated by Jonathan, provided one of the major sparks that lit the fire that was COTT in the 1990s. It is this synthesis that prepared and propelled COTT to the center of the AIDS/Blood Epidemic, what the men and women of COTT refer to as The Hemophilia Holocaust.

In the early days, Matt Murphy and Greg Haas joined Jonathan and Tom. The Murphy family, there at the beginning, remains active on the COTT Board through Mary Lou Murphy, current Co-Vice President. Mary Lou’s two sons, Matt and Leo Murphy were an integral part of the COTT family. Leo Murphy, who along with Corey Dubin from Santa Barbara California founded COTTWEST, joined the COTT Board of Directors in 1992. Greg Haas became the first Editor of the COTT quarterly journal, The Common Factor. From 1991 through the end of the decade Common Factor was one of the leading HIV/AIDS grass roots publications. In 1993 Richard Valdez, from the then-Michael-Rosenberg-led Peer Association, joined the COTT Board to facilitate a better working relationship between the two community organizations. Dick has certainly had an Impact on the actions and directions of the Committee of Ten Thousand. In 1993 COTT founded, along with other community based organizations, the Hemophilia Federation. The federation worked under the wing of COTT until 1995 when a growth related, full separation took place. In the spirit of organizational respect and boundaries Jan Hamilton resigned from the COTT Board while Corey Dubin, in turn, resigned from the Board of the Federation. COTT currently enjoys a good working relationship with the Hemophilia Federation.

COTT has survived the loss of nearly 60 percent of its Board of Directors during the height of the AIDS/blood epidemic during the mid 1990s. Many organizations would have been unable to sustain such loses and continue as a viable and effective community based agency. However through the perseverance of its Board and the people surviving, COTT has not only survived it is experiencing a second wind of growth and remains vibrant and representative of the grass roots hemophilia community. As we prepare to enter the second five years of the twenty-first century, you can still hear and feel the influence of Jonathan Wadleigh, Tom Fahey, and the voices of all those who passed into the spirit world, in the work and ethos of  the Committee of Ten Thousand.