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Group as managing partner and chief administrative officer. Joe and his wife Noreen have three children, Colin, Timmy, and Patrick.
Moira Ryan
Duke University Medical Center Dr. Moira Ryan has been the chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University since July 2017. Her previous positions include the Ruane Professor for the Implementation of Science for Child and Adolescent
“I learned from them the importance of hard work, perseverance, humor, and Irish music from my Irish grandparents.”
Moira Ryan
proud of my Irish heritage,” she says. Moira lives in North Carolina with her husband Alfred and ten-year-old fraternal twins, Ella and Aiden.
Brenton L. Saunders
Mental Health at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Columbia University and the director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Division at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian. Born in Islip, Long Island, Moira majored in biology at Goucher College and received her medical degree at Rutgers University. From her first jobs as a swimming instructor and lifeguard, she had an interest in keeping those around her happy and secure, something which she passed on to her five younger siblings, all of whom followed in the lifeguard tradition. Moira is a second-generation Irish American with roots in counties Leitrim and Limerick on her father’s side. “My grandparents taught me how fortunate I was to be born and raised in the U.S.A. but at the same time taught me to be 68 IRISH AMERICA AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2017
Allergan Brent Saunders is chairman, president and CEO of Allergan plc, a Dublinbased global pharmaceutical company, having previously served as a director, CEO and president since July 2014. He was elected chairman in 2016. Brent has significant healthcare industry expertise and a proven track record leading business transformations and integrations. Before joining Allergan, he was a director and later president and CEO of Forest Laboratories and prior to that CEO of Bausch + Lomb, in addition to holding several leadership positions at Schering-Plough, PwC, Coventry Health Care, Home Care Corporation of America, and the Thomas Jefferson University Health System, where he began his career as chief compliance officer. Brent serves on the board of Cisco Systems and RWJBarnabas Health, and is a member of the Business Council and PhRMA. Raised in P e n n s y l v a n i a ’s Lehigh Valley by Charles and Sheila Saunders, healthcare was an important aspect of his life from the beginning. His father, a urologist, and mother co-founded Senior Solutions, the first geriatriccare agency in the area. Brent earned both his M.B.A. and J.D. from Temple University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
Diane Sirakovsky and Michele Teter
Alliance Homecare As co-founders of Alliance Homecare, Diane Sirakovsky and Michele Teter are committed to the vision of a future in which the loss of independence need not be a frightening experience for elderly individuals and their loved ones. Both were working as critical care nurses at the New York Columbia Presbyterian University (where they specialized in neurology) when, in 2006, they merged their wisdom as carers with the financial know-how of their now-colleague, Gregory Solomento, who was at the time acting as carer for his own grandmother, Val. Together, they set out on a mission to provide top-quality care for those in need, maintaining a strict code of confidentiality, respect, and integrity.
Diane Sirakovsky
Alliance Homecare, which offers its services to individuals with conditions such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and COPD, as well as those in need of palliative end of life care, operates by the “Grandma Rule.” This means that all new carers are hired only after the interviewer has asked themselves whether they would trust this candidate to care for their own grandparent with competence and compassion, recognizing their individuality. In addition to this, the company applies a 360 degree approach to its aid services, including full-service home care delivery, emergency planning services, patient and family advocacy, food delivery programs, regular in-person case manager visits, networking opportuni-