Peter Brigham, MSW

Peter Brigham was born and raised in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where his mother became one of the first female United Way executive directors in the nation in 1947. She instilled in her son a social service orientation that has led to a productive 30-year career with the Burn Foundation in Philadelphia.

Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s creation of the U.S. Peace Corps in April, 1961, Peter was accepted into one of its first training programs shortly after receiving his BA in English from Yale University. In 1962-63, he taught English, French and Latin and coached track and football (soccer to Americans) at one of the top secondary schools in Nigeria. After extensive travel in Africa and Europe he returned later in 1964 to study community organization at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

After obtaining his MSW in 1966, Peter worked in health and social service planning in the Philadelphia area before coming to Crozer-Chester Medical Center in 1973. Crozer and St. Agnes Medical Center had just founded the Burn Foundation of Greater Delaware Valley (renamed the “Burn Foundation” in 1983), to support their new burn centers and carry out education in burn prevention. In 1974 Peter was assigned to help staff the new agency, and in 1979 was selected as its president.

The 1970’s were a time of tremendous growth in the establishment of burn centers and in fire and burn prevention activity. Recognizing the lack of documentation and coordination of these efforts, Peter’s far-sighted mentor, Crozer-Chester President James Loucks, encouraged him to make a major time commitment to the American Burn Association (ABA). Dr. Loucks grasped both the potential central role of the ABA and, at the time, the limitations resulting from its lack of a central office and its natural preoccupation with clinical practice, teaching and research.
With similar encouragement from ABA leaders, notably Drs. Alan Dimick, Charles Baxter, Basil Pruitt and Charles Hartford, Peter soon expanded the organization’s visibility and connections in several directions. He compiled in 1975 the first comprehensive directory of burn care facilities in the U.S and Canada, began monitoring federal legislation and regulations relevant to burn prevention, and built bridges to numerous other national organizations and data sources related to burn injury and its causes. In 1976 he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Organization and Delivery of Burn Care, the first non-physician to chair an ABA standing committee, a position he held for an unprecedented four years. In 1979 he was elected to a two-year term on the ABA Board of Trustees, where he supported equalizing membership status within the ABA and encouraged the growing involvement of firefighters.

Peter was a key organizer and early Chairman of the Federation of Burn Foundations, which now includes close to 50 regional burn support organizations, most of them active in burn prevention. At the national level, he has long worked closely with fire-safe cigarette champion Andrew McGuire, notably in securing the endorsement of the American Public Health Association in 1980 and contracting with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in the early 1990’s to study burn center admissions resulting from cigarette-ignited fires.

Peter was honored by the ABA in 1984 with the Curtis P. Artz Distinguished Service Award for his many contributions to the burn world up to that time. Over the past 20 years, other ABA members and the new central office have assumed leadership in many of the areas where Peter broke ground, while he has continued to promote burn prevention through the ABA as an “ex officio” statistician member of the Burn Prevention Committee, a copy editor of the committee’s annual prevention guides, and, as a member of its editorial board, a frequent reviewer of epidemiology and prevention-related papers for the Journal of Burn Care and Rehabilitation. He remains a primary source for the incidence and treatment statistics provided by ABA fact sheets.
Along with presenting about a dozen papers at the national meetings of the ABA and several other professional organizations, he has co-authored two major JBCR articles, a history of the development of North American burn centers, (in 1993, with Alan Dimick and Betty Sheehy) and a treatise on burn injury incidence trends and data sources (in 1996, with Elizabeth McLoughlin). The latter paper was the first to document the 50% decline in reportable burn injury and burn hospitalization since most federal data systems were established in the 1970’s, -coinciding with the growth of burn prevention as part of the ABA mission. Increased burn prevention efforts by ABA members may well have contributed significantly to this remarkable 25-year trend.

Mark A. Harper Sr., Firefighter

Mark A. Harper Sr. was born on May 11, 1962 in Akron, Ohio, without an idea of the journey he would begin that day. His mother Betty Harper, who through personal sacrifices showed him the importance of helping others, influenced Mark in his early years. With this parental education, Mark investigated jobs and positions where he would be able to ‘help’ the public. He was hired by the Akron Fire Department on March 11, 1985. Dedicated to a job that entailed his goal in life, he decided he wanted to do more to reach as many people as possible, and increase awareness about the dangers of injuries caused by fires. With the support of his wife and two children, when the chance arose for Mark to assist with the development of the Public Education Office for the Akron Fire Department, he jumped at the opportunity. Here he found his avenue to reach the public sector and address injury prevention to the community.

From the start of his career, Mark visited his nieces’ and nephews’ classes, and later his own children’s class, to teach fire safety even before there was an official public education effort from the Fire Department. Animated, and at the level of the group he was instructing, he interested the children, helping them to join in and learn. Teaching became natural to him. In 1990, Mark joined forces with the Clifford R. Boeckman MD Regional Burn Center at Akron Children’s Hospital. There, he helped with the development of the Juvenile Firestopper’s Class, an educational program for children who have engaged in some sort of firesetting activity. The age-appropriate curriculum included children from ages 3 to 17. Classes were held at the Burn Center in the evenings, making it possible for the child to attend with their parent without missing school. He participated in this effort for more than a year on his own time, even though he was still a ‘line’ firefighter.

On June 1, 1991, the Akron Fire Department began to formalize their public education efforts by transferring two line firefighters to the newly developed Public Education Office. Mark was selected to assist the District Chief in charge of this office. Their goals were to develop and implement various programs in fire safety and prevention and apply these programs to many age groups and sectors of the community. By using the alliance he had formed with the Boeckman Regional Burn Center, Mark was able to address fire and burn prevention needs of the community and develop programs that encompassed safety strategies for both fire and burn injuries. It was through this affiliation Mark was first exposed to burn camps, where he learned a valuable lesson of viewing the person first and the injury second.

In 1991, Mark became a member of the Summit/Stark Aluminum Cans for Burned Children (ACBC) Board, where he held several elected offices including Assistant Treasurer, Vice President and President, an office he held for four years before deciding to step down in 2000. During this break away from the board, Mark continued helping with the planning of ACBC events that benefited burn survivors of all ages: burn camp, an annual holiday program, and an adult survivor retreat weekend. He promoted the group throughout the community by various fundraising activities and returned to the ACBC Board in 2003.
Mark joined the American Burn Association in 1992 where he quickly learned how little he knew about burn prevention. He gained a wealth of information by working with others. While networking with other fire and burn prevention educators, Mark was invited to be a part of a National Burn Prevention Committee - The Burn Awareness Coalition. A few years later, he was invited to become a member of the ABA Burn Prevention Committee. He has served on the ABA Burn Prevention Committee since 1999, and has helped write and edit various burn awareness campaigns.

Mark works with the North Eastern Ohio University College of Medicine (NEOUCOM) Community Clerkship Program. This program has senior medical students work in the community to initiate a program dealing with a defined problem or condition pertinent to that population. The experience removes the medical student from their conventional role as doctor and throws them into one where anticipatory guidance is their medicine. By taking part in this program, the students learn how other factors affect their patients and families in the community they serve.
Mark has been instrumental in developing programs for the burn survivor. He helped organize a S.O.A.R. (Survivors Offering Assistance in Recovery) training session at Akron Children’s in 2002 and is presently coordinator of this program. He has developed novel teaching aids including a video, “Don’t Let Your Child Get Carried Away,” for the Juvenile Firestopper program, which is currently used by The Ohio State Fire Marshall’s Office in its Juvenile Firesetter’s Classes. He entered the cover of this video into the 2001 ABA Prevention Poster contest and was awarded first place. Mark has helped with the development, funding, and production of two widely used fire and burn prevention games across the United States: Smokey’s Firehouse and The Fire Fighter’s game, as well as a CD-ROM game, Smokey’s SAFE House, which is available on the Internet. In maintaining his goal to reach out to the public, Mark has put tireless hours into preparing programs for groups in need and obtaining grant funding to implement these programs. He is continually striving for a safer environment for the community.

B. Daniel Dillard

B. Daniel (“Dan”) Dillard has served 20 years as Executive Director of the Burn Prevention Foundation, Allentown, Pennsylvania. Under his leadership, the foundation has grown to become a national model of burn prevention program development at the regional level.
Despite the fact that the foundation is not based in a major metropolitan area, Dan has raised funds sufficient to create and sustain annually a regional network of educational partnerships that deliver topical and population-based burn prevention programs to over a quarter million people per year. The foundation has taken the lead, representing the burn community’s perspective, in statewide legislative campaigns related to smoke detectors and fire-safe cigarettes.
Dan’s ability to create effective burn prevention coalitions was most recently illustrated in the partnership he crafted between the Public Broadcasting System Television Network, the Philadelphia Eagles, State Farm Insurance and the Lehigh Valley Hospital Burn Center. The result was the development of a video-based children’s burn prevention program that was broadcast directly into over 3600 regional classrooms. The program reached nearly 70% of all targeted kindergarten through fourth grade students within the Foundation’s 20-county service area.

Recognizing that technology has redefined how young people learn, Dan recently secured funding from FEMA to develop a computer-based, interactive learning series entitled “Surviving a Fire.” This state-of-the-art program employs virtual reality technology in a variety of housing and structure settings to teach participants how to get out alive if caught in a fire. The program is scheduled for completion by fall 2006.

Through his participation in American Burn Association and Federation of Burn Foundation events, Dan has become an outspoken advocate for establishing juvenile fire setting intervention teams locally and regionally. He is a charter member of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner’s Task Force on Juvenile Fire Setting, and has created a regional intervention program that serves as a model for the Pennsylvania State Standards Protocol.

Always strongly committed to working with his peers in the burn support field, Dan has been a key driving force in the Federation of Burn Foundations for most of its 20 year existence. During his service, which has included five terms as President of the Federation, Dan has significantly upgraded the quality of the Federation’s annual programs at ABA conventions, strengthened ties between the Federation and the ABA in general, and encouraged the growth of additional burn foundation organizations in regions served by burn centers lacking similar support organizations.
In 2004, Dan collaborated with Chairman, David Barillo, MD, and the ABA Central Office to develop a Fire Act Grant proposal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency that secured over $320,000 for the American Burn Association. Grant funds will be used to update and digitize the committee’s six existing Burn Awareness Campaigns, create two new campaigns and distribute them to over 33,000 fire organizations and burn centers throughout North America.

While prevention has been and remains the focus of his career, Dan credits the work of burn care professionals as the motivator that drives him. “When I was approached to be interviewed as a candidate for the Executive Directorship of the Burn Prevention Foundation, I was not looking for, nor particularly interested in a career change,” stated Dillard. “I did agree, however, to meet with the Medical Director of the Burn Center at the Lehigh Valley Hospital,” he continued. “What I observed and learned at that meeting not only ultimately changed my career path, it changed my life. Here was a team of exceedingly talented and dedicated health care professionals who did not just give token endorsement to the prevention of burn injury, they were investing in it!” Dillard concluded.

It is for this very reason that Dan considers his organization not just a related service to the burn care profession, but rather a part of the team. Fortunately, Lehigh Valley Hospital Regional Burn Center Medical Director, Daniel Lozano, MD, and Director of Patient Care Services, Jacqueline Fenicle, BSN, share that philosophy. The Burn Prevention Foundation and the Regional Burn Center are partners on numerous community initiatives. Both the community at large and burn survivors are better served as a result.

Dan and wife, Malia, a school teacher, have seven children and four grandchildren and live in Bethlehem, PA. A former executive for the Boy Scouts of America, Dan remains an active volunteer in scouting and in his church.

Michael D. Peck, MD, ScD, FACS

When Dr. David Barillo, Chairman of the ABA Prevention Committee, contacted Mike to inform him of the bestowal of the Prevention Award, Mike’s comment was that he didn’t feel like he had done enough yet to merit the award. However, it is true that Mike is fortunate to be involved in a number of exciting projects still in the development phase.

Burn prevention is a science. Although this is unrecognized by many, and although burn prevention programs are often relegated to the lowest-funded sectors of budgets, the design, development, and implementation of these programs moves to the same rhythms as other injury prevention programs, such as motor vehicle safety and deterrence of interpersonal violence. Mike became interested in the epidemiology of burn injuries while a research fellow at the Cincinnati Shriners’ Hospital for Burned Children in 1987-1990. There he fell under the tutelage of Mr. Matt Maley, long an active worker in the burn prevention field. Through Matt, Mike was introduced not only to the previous work done in the field, but also to two major figures, Dr. Elizabeth McLoughlin and Mr. Andrew McGuire. Andy has been very influential over the years as he has demonstrated the power of advocacy. For any who doubt the value of cause-directed persistence and commitment, the passage into law of fire-safe cigarette legislation in eight states is a direct reflection of Andy’s dedication.

It was this interest in burn epidemiology that has led Mike to his present work with the International Classification of External Causes of Injury (ICECI). Similar to the ICD-9 codes that are used ubiquitously to describe illnesses and injuries, the ICECI was developed in the last decade to allow epidemiologists to gather accurate and comprehensive information about the cause of injuries (including mechanisms, objects and persons involved). The burn prevention community has long recognized the need for a more complete database from which to design meaningful prevention programs, and the ICECI promises to be the missing tool. At present there are nearly a dozen U.S. burn centers that are committed to serving as beta test sites for the assessment of the ICECI as an adjunct to the National Burn Repository, a project generously funded by the International Association of Firefighters Burn Foundation.

But no other event has had as much impact on Mike’s interest and involvement in burn prevention as the ABA annual meeting many years ago when he walked into a presentation on prevention of burns in the elderly by a nurse from North Carolina. Over the years while Mike was at the University of Miami, Mr. Ernest Grant became an increasingly important ally in the battle against preventable burns. Little did the two of them know in those early years that starting in 1996 they would have the opportunity to work together daily after Mike moved to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. There Mike took advantage not only of Ernie’s experience, knowledge, and contacts in the field, but also of the generous resources of the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center. As a result, Mike has had the honor to develop international programs of burn prevention for the NC Jaycee Burn Center over the last decade.

In recognition of these efforts, Mike was made the Chairman of the Prevention Committee of the International Society of Burn Injuries in 2004. Among the many activities advanced by ISBI Prevention Committee has been the funding of a new position in the Violence and Injury Prevention section of the World Health Organization. This new position, recently filled by Dr. Charles Mock, formerly director of the Seattle Injury Prevention Research Center, will allow the WHO to participate globally in the development and implementation of burn prevention programs in developing nations. In fact, within just two weeks there will be a conference in Geneva with participants from around the globe, in which projects and plans for burn prevention will be formulated.

Thus it is true that many of these projects are in their infancy and much work remains to be done. Although Mike is not ready to take credit for the completion of projects still in early stages, he wishes to accept the ABA Burn Prevention Award in recognition of the importance of these projects. Burn prevention is an epidemiological science—this is an important concept. Burn prevention is highly important in developing nations—this is another important concept. Both deserve commitment of time, resources and personnel over the next decades as our appreciation grows that the best way to treat a burn injury to keep it from occurring in the first place. As noted by one of the leaders of burn care in India, Dr. M. H. Keswani,

“The challenge of burns lies not in the successful treatment of a 100% burn, but in the 100% prevention of all burn injuries.”