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Keynote and General Session Speakers
Tuesday, 8:00am - 10:00am Washington State Convention Center
Tray Dunaway
Physician, Patient Advocate, Speaker, Columnist, Humanitarian
 Tray Dunaway is a man of action with the rare ability to turn problems into opportunities, a knack he picked up during his college days at Duke and medical training at the University of Pennsylvania. Like many physicians in the 1990s, he had become increasingly frustrated with the seemingly endless paper work demanded by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance. He was also offended with the apparent presumption that all physicians are crooks, or intentionally seek to exploit government programs.
Dr. Dunaway increasingly felt that something had gone seriously wrong with an American health care system in which 45 million people lacked insurance and those with insurance did not get the quality of health care they deserved. He bristled at the idea that money and institutions were supplanting people. He took issue with nomenclature, in which phrases like "managed care" really meant managing costs or rationing health care. He cringed as he watched insurance company clerks, who had never seen a patient, overturning the judgment of highly trained physicians. He concluded that the system was so distorted that it was hindering him and other physicians from helping people as they had dreamt of doing as new medical students.
Something snapped in 1995 when Dr. Dunaway attended a physician documentation session to learn the right codes to write on patients' medical charts to ensure they would be covered and his practice compensated. The educational session was so obtuse and Byzantine that he resolved to take some steps to help heal the ailing U.S. health care system.
Like Walt Disney, Dr. Dunaway had learned early on that entertainment and education are closely linked, so he created a publishing company, Rebel Records, Inc. His form of rebellion was to teach other physicians to speak "coding," and inject some common sense into the "Catch 22" environment that now passes for medical practice in America. As much as anyone could, he brought clarity into this area through an irreverent sense of laughter that inspired gales of humor among the physicians who heard his message.
In a very short time, Dr. Dunaway was in such demand as a public speaker that he barely had time for his medical practice. He was catapulted into membership in the National Speakers Association, where he now shines as one of the brightest stars in its galaxy. His success as a speaker stems from his deep spirituality, integrity, and fundamental identity as a healer who puts the well-being of Americans, especially the ill and suffering, before anything else. This being true, it should come as no surprise that he is a strong advocate of home care and hospice.
Dr. Dunaway, like the National Governors Association, believes that long-term care is America's greatest problem, and that home care and hospice is the best solution. However, home care and hospice can not become the center of health care unless physicians, home care providers, and the health information technology industry can reach an understanding. Dr. Dunaway has made it his business to bring these groups together since he knows that health care will soon stratify into disease prevention at one end of life and management of chronic illness at the other, both the traditional province of home care.
In his presentation, Dr. Dunaway will employ his usual sense of insight and humor to tell home care executives how to communicate better with physicians, whose orders are the necessary beginning for all Medicare and Medicaid home care and hospice services.
Mary Lou Retton
Olympic Champion, Wife, Mother, Actress, Television Personality, Author, Public Speaker and Humanitarian
 Mary Lou Retton is one of the most accomplished and beloved citizens of the United States of America. She is a winner not only in sports but in every walk of
life: as a wife and mother; as a business woman; as an artist; as a journalist, television personality and producer; as a motivational speaker, as an author, and as a humanitarian.
Mary Lou Retton catapulted to international fame by winning the All-Around Gold Medal in women's gymnastics at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, becoming the first American woman ever to win a gold medal in gymnastics. She also won silver medals for Team and Vault, and bronze medals for Uneven Bars and Floor Exercise. Her five medals were the most won by any athlete at the 1984 Olympics.
Other victories include being the only woman to win three American Cups, (1983 - 85) the only American to win Japan's prestigious Chunichi Cup (1983), two U.S. Gymnastics Federation American Classics (1983 - 84), and the All-Around title at both the 1984 National Championships and Olympic Trials. Mary Lou retired from competitive gymnastics in 1986.
Today she continues to touch the lives of millions. A national sports survey recently found Mary Lou to be the most popular female athlete in America. She is in great demand as a motivational speaker and corporate spokesperson, and also travels the world as a Fitness Ambassador, promoting the benefits of proper nutrition and regular exercise. Mary Lou serves as national chairperson and sits on the Board of Governors of the Children's Miracle Network. She was a commentator for NBC at the 1988 Olympic Games, and wrote a daily column for USA TODAY at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Mary Lou also served as an on-air reporter for Gannet Broadcasting's NBC affiliates, the largest NBC affiliate group in the United States. In 2002 she was a Producer and Host of a PBS Children's TV Show, Mary Lou's Flip Flop Shop. Mary Lou also co-hosted the weekly television series, Road to Olympic Gold.
A budding actress, Mary Lou has appeared in the motion pictures Scrooged and Naked Gun 33-1/3. She has made appearances on numerous television shows including Guiding Light, Knots Landing, and Dream On, and guest starred in one of the highest rated episodes of the series Baywatch. She is also author of Mary Lou Retton's Gateways to Happiness: 7 Ways to a More Peaceful, More Accomplished, and More Satisfying Life (April 2000).
Countless awards and honors have been bestowed on Mary Lou including: 1984 Sports Illustrated Sportswoman of the Year; 1984 Associated Press Amateur Athlete of the Year; the first gymnast and the youngest inductee into the USOC Olympic Hall of Fame; the first woman to appear on the Wheaties Box; and one of the America's Top Ten Most Admired public figures. In 1994, the U.S. Olympic Committee established the annual Mary Lou Retton Award for athletic excellence. In 1995, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton presented Mary Lou with The Flo Hyman Award in recognition of her spirit, dignity, and commitment to excellence. Mary Lou was selected as a member of the official White House Delegation representing the President at both the 1992 and 1998 Olympic Games. She was inducted into the Humanitarian Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2003 she, along with Mike Wallace, Val J. Halamandaris, Michael Bolton and others, was honored with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Mary Lou married Shannon Kelley, an investment banker on December 29, 1990. They make their home in Houston, Texas with their four girls, Shayla Rae, McKenna Lane, Skyla Brae and Emma Jean. Ms. Retton will share her secrets for leading a balanced life, and how to be successful as an individual, a family member, a business professional and a member of the community.
Betty Tisdale
"The Angel of Saigon" and Founder of HALO (Helping and Loving Orphans)
Frank E. Moss Award Winner
 Betty Tisdale has devoted her life to helping and loving orphans. She is also commonly known as the "Angel of Saigon." Therefore, nothing could be more appropriate than the acronym HALO to represent the national organization she founded.
It all began in 1959, when Betty read Dr. Tom Dooley's book, Deliver Us from Evil. Dr. Dooley was renowned for his missionary work in Southeast Asia. When she learned that the great man was coming to New York for cancer treatments, she went to the hospital and volunteered to serve him. He reluctantly agreed. What he needed at the moment was not a missionary, he said, but a typist to help answer the tons of mail he received.
Dr. Dooley died two years later but left an Asian legacy of hospitals, clinics, orphanages and dedicated followers such as Betty. She saved her money and finally went abroad to see things for herself. She was shocked by the poverty she saw in India but it was in Vietnam where she saw scrawny babies in rusty cribs that she knew she had to do something about it.
Returning to New York, she obtained a job as Secretary to Senator Jacob Javits. Betty persuaded him to help set up The An Lac Orphanage which he did with support from his former law partners.
The orphanage thrived with the U.S. presence in Vietnam when Betty continued to raise money for it from American GIs. When it was apparent that South Vietnam was losing the war, support for the orphanage receded as well. Betty, however, intensified her efforts to help, buoyed by the fact that she had in the interim married a high ranking U.S. Army officer.
When she heard that the U.S. Army was pulling out of Vietnam with the imminent fall of Saigon, Betty's concern was for the orphans, many of whom had American GI's as fathers. She could not abide by the Army's decision to leave the orphans behind.
She flew to Vietnam at a time when everyone else was being evacuated; she helped to dissolve one excuse after another. If the lack of birth certificates for the orphans was the issue, Betty got blank forms at a local hospital and just filled them out. She arranged with friends for a chartered airplane to fly out the 220 babies. When the Secretary of the Army didn't return her urgent pleas, Betty used a discreet route contacting his wife. As a result, housing was waiting when the children arrived at Fort Benning, Georgia. All 220 orphans were evacuated; one baby died in route to the U.S. but the other 219 were adopted within a month.
This dramatic story is only one chapter of her life-long service on behalf of orphans. Through her organization HALO, Betty today continues to look for and improve the quality of life for orphans all over the world. She has worked hard to arrange for as many adoptions as possible and to ensure the orphans are placed with good families. Because of her life of service, Betty was recognized with a National Caring Award in 2001.n
Speaker Schedule
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