In the space of one week Broward Children’s Center CEO Marjorie Evans has been awarded a Bank of America Local Heroes Award and named a Concern Award finalist by the Health Foundation of South Florida.

The awards recognize her contribution to her community and her leadership in enhancing the health and well being of people in Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. The awards come with a $5000 and $10,000 grant respectively.

“With more than 33 years of service, Marjorie Evans has continued to break barriers to improve the lives of children with special needs,” said Shari Gantman, Health Foundation of South Florida Public Relations Director. “What makes her stand out is her delight in the possibilities for improvement in the quality of life of special needs children that hard work can realize. We are delighted to have this opportunity to salute her.”

Marjorie Evans service of those with special needs began in 1970 when she volunteered at the Broward Captivated Child Center and fought an almost daily struggle to keep the doors of the facility open and solvent. Thirty-five years later, she heads Broward Children’s Center, an organization that has served thousands of infants, children and young adults who are developmentally disabled and medically fragile.

Her stewardship has seen the Center grow from one serving 25 children with several employees to a campus with 300 staff meeting the needs of 600 children and families, some of whom are among the country’s most medically fragile youth.

Evans achievements include heading the creation of; the first full-day school program for medically fragile/developmentally delayed Broward youngsters; Florida’s first after school program for children with disabilities; Florida’s first licensed freestanding pediatric nursing facility; first not-for-profit agency to be awarded Broward County Commission funding for developmental disabilities; first education class for cognitively intact ventilator-assisted children; first preschool program for children with handicaps and first independent living environment for ventilator assisted young adults in the United States.

Center Operations Officer, Jacqui Mogavero said Evans continues to inspire Center staff to provide the highest quality of life possible to those they serve through services that nurture education, privacy, dignity and safety.



Larry Press, CPA, has been promoted to Controller of VITAS Healthcare Corporation, announced President David Wester. Formerly Director of Financial Reporting, Press will retain his role in the financial reporting process.

Press joined VITAS in 1999 and brings more than 20 years of accounting and financial reporting experience to his position. He holds a master’s degree in accounting from St. Thomas University, Miami, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Florida International University.



Ana Lopez-Blazquez has been promoted to chief executive officer of Baptist Health Enterprises, an affiliate of Baptist Health South Florida. Lopez-Blazquez will continue in her role as Baptist Health’s chief strategic officer.

Lopez-Blazquez received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Florida International University and master’s degrees in business administration and health science from the University of Florida. She is a graduate of Leadership Florida, which seeks to build a strong, diverse, statewide network of leaders; a board member of the Alumni Association of the University of Florida’s Graduate Program in Health Administration, and a member of the Advisory Board of Our Lady of Lourdes Academy.



JFK Medical Center is pleased to announce the appointment of Robbin Moore as its Chief Operating Officer. Robbin joins JFK Medical Center after serving as Chief Executive Officer at Northlake Medical Center in Atlanta since 2002.

Robbin will oversee facilitation of safety and security, physical therapy, diagnostic imaging departments, the sleep lab, environmental services, pharmacy, food services, and facilities management. Along with heading these areas, Robbin will work closely with the other members of the Executive Management Team to further develop operations and strategic planning for the medical center.



Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science (FAU CESCoS) has entered into an affiliation agreement with H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute (Moffitt), Tampa, to engage in collaborative research of new cancer drugs and technology, seek funds to underwrite these cooperative efforts and create educational activities of mutual interest.

“FAU’s new partnership with Moffitt is a great honor and an opportunity for the university to make a significant contribution in the development of lifesaving cancer drugs,” said FAU President Frank T. Brogan. “This will serve to advance FAU’s reputation as a major research university, while creating new educational and research opportunities with this highly esteemed institution for the faculty and students within our scientific academic community.”

“We are very excited about Moffitt’s affiliation with FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and the group of research scientists headed up by Dr. Gregg Fields,” said William S. Dalton, Ph.D., M.D., CEO/ Center Director of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. “As a cancer hospital and research institution, we are dedicated to early stage translational research aimed at the rapid translation of scientific discoveries to benefit patient care. The work that Dr. Fields is doing in the field of cancer drug research and the new technology to deliver them is in direct synergy with our goals for expediting development of drugs for future clinical trials. Through this collaboration, there is potential for groundbreaking discoveries in the fight against cancer. My colleagues and I, including Moffitt Deputy Director Dr. Jack Pledger, look forward to this endeavor.”

In conjunction with this affiliation announcement, it was confirmed today that Gregg B. Fields, Ph.D., professor and chair of FAU CESCoS’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who heads up the FAU team, has been awarded a four-year, $1 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant, which will be applied to this collaboration, is specifically for the development of a new class of cancer drug delivery vehicles utilizing nanotechnology to target specific cancer cells.

“The new affiliation with an institution of Moffitt’s caliber creates a fast-track opportunity for FAU’s CESCoS scientists to rapidly take lab-tested drugs through clinical trials and turn them into medicine,” said Dr. Larry F. Lemanski, FAU vice president of research and graduate studies.

“The new pharmaceuticals in this collaboration creates new opportunities for marketable discoveries that will, in turn, help fund further drug research at FAU,” said Dr. Nathan Dean, dean of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.

“We look forward to a long and productive relationship with Moffitt which will enable FAU to aggressively pursue our goals to develop new ways to attack cancer using nanotechnology for targeted delivery of drugs at the cellular level,” said Dr. Fields. “Moffitt offers us a venue for a seamless approach to take cancer drug development from the lab to testing at the clinical level. This partnership also allows us, at benchmarks throughout clinical trials, to quickly return to the lab to refine the drugs to make them more tolerant in the body based on continuous analysis of the results. This proactive response would not be available to Moffitt or to FAU CESCoS in the standard drug R&D clinical testing process.” Dr. Fields is also affiliated with the Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology within CESCoS.