New York, NY – May 26, 2006: New York, NY; June 13, 2006: Elaine Berg, the president and CEO of the New York Organ Donor Network, has been elected to serve on the executive board of the Association of Organ Procurement Organization (AOPO) as secretary/treasurer. Ms. Berg will officially start in her new capacity at the AOPO Annual Meeting that starts in Boston on June 20.

Ms. Berg has served AOPO in numerous capacities, including service on the Nominating Committee; Hospital Breakthrough Committee, and Bylaws and Membership Committee. She has assisted as co-chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Branding and has also been AOPO Liaison to Hadassah and to the American Hospital Association.

Ms. Berg was appointed executive director of the Donor Network in November 1999, and she subsequently became the agency’s first president and CEO. Prior to joining the Donor Network, Ms. Berg worked in hospital finance for six years, and spent the next 24 years in increasingly responsible positions in general administration. She is on the board of directors of the Coalition on Donation and has been an active participant on several United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) committees.

Ms. Berg received a Bachelor’s Degree Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa from the City University of New York, and a Master’s Degree in Health Care Policy and Planning from New York University. She has been a Fellow in ACHE since 1989.

Founded in 1978, the New York Organ Donor Network is the second largest of the nation’s 58 nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organizations (OPOs). It is responsible for the recovery of organs and tissues for transplantation, and public and professional education efforts for a culturally and ethnically diverse population of 13 million in the Greater New York metropolitan area. The Donor Network serves Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, Long Island, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester, and also Pike County, PA. It works closely with nine transplant centers and more than 100 hospitals in the New York metropolitan area. All hospitals are required by law to notify the Donor Network (their local OPO) of all in-hospital deaths in a timely manner, so that organ and tissue donation can be discussed with families of the deceased.

For more information, contact Martin Woolf 646-291-4460 or mwoolf@nyodn.org.