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In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. In 1972 she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking another political barrier.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
John Crowley | |
|---|---|
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| Personal details | |
| Born | April 7, 1967 Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Party | Republican |
| Spouse | Aileen Holleran |
| Children | John Megan Patrick |
| Education | Harvard Business School (MBA) Notre Dame Law School (JD) Georgetown University (BS) United States Naval Academy |
| Occupation | President and CEO, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) |
John Francis Crowley (born April 7, 1967) is the president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the world’s largest biotechnology advocacy organization.[1] He served as the chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics. He co-founded Novazyme Pharmaceuticals with William Canfield, which was later acquired by Genzyme Corporation,[2] and founded Orexigen Therapeutics. In 2006, he was profiled in the book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million – And Bucked the Medical Establishment – In a Quest to Save His Children by Geeta Anand. In 2010, Crowley released his memoir, Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope, and Joy.[3] Crowley and his family were the inspiration for the movie Extraordinary Measures starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser in 2010.[4] Crowley was named CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization in 2023.[5]
Crowley was raised in Englewood, New Jersey, the son of an Englewood police officer who died in an accident on duty when Crowley was eight years old.[6][7] His family has Irish and Italian Catholic roots.[8] Crowley's grandfather, John, was a first-generation immigrant from County Cork.[9] His mother worked as a secretary and a waitress.[8]
Crowley attended Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey, graduating with the class of 1985.[10] Crowley attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland from 1986 to 1987. He went on to earn a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. He entered the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1989 and married his wife Aileen in 1990. After earning his J.D. degree from Notre Dame in 1992, he worked as a litigation associate in the Health Care Practice Group of the Indianapolis-based law firm of Bingham Summers Welsh & Spilman. He went on to earn an M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1997, and then worked for a management consulting firm in San Francisco.[2][11]
In 1998, two of Crowley's children, Megan and Patrick, were diagnosed with a severe neuromuscular disorder glycogen storage disease type II, also called Pompe disease. In the face of the children's deteriorating health, the family moved to Princeton, New Jersey to be close to doctors specializing in the disease.[7][12] Crowley got a job at Bristol-Myers Squibb, immersing himself in health research. He established a foundation to raise money for Pompe awareness[9] and the family worked with non-profit organizations to fund Pompe research.[13] Crowley found that there were researchers in Europe as well as at Duke University, the University of Florida, and University of Oklahoma that were all working on Pompe, but were not communicating.[8] In March 2000, Crowley left Bristol-Myers Squibb and partnered with William Canfield to start Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology research company located in Oklahoma City. Crowley became the company's CEO.[14][15]
In 2001, Novazyme was acquired by Genzyme Corporation, then the world's third-largest biotechnology company.[2] Crowley, who became senior vice president, was in charge of Genzyme's global Pompe program, the largest R&D effort in the company's history, from September 2001 until December 2002. In January 2003, Megan and Patrick Crowley received the enzyme replacement therapy for Pompe disease developed by Genzyme at St. Peters Hospital in New Brunswick. The therapy, called Lumizyme, is given bi-weekly.[2][8] The enzyme replacement therapy reduced the size of the children's hearts and improved their muscle strength.[9] As of 2024, Megan is a college graduate working for Make-A-Wish.[16] The acquisition of Novazyme by Genzyme, and Crowley's fight to cure Pompe's Disease, was documented in the Harvard Business School Case Study, Novazyme: A Father's Love.[17]
Crowley left Genzyme to ensure that his children would qualify for a drug developed by the company. He then became founding president and CEO of Orexigen Therapeutics in 2003. In 2004, he became a director at Amicus Therapeutics, based in Cranbury, New Jersey, and in January 2005, he was named the president and CEO of the company.[18] Amicus works to develop treatments for rare, devastating genetic disorders. The company has a Pompe treatment in development, as well as Galafold (migalastat), which is for Fabry disease.[8][19] The company's Fabry drug was approved for use in Europe in 2016.[13][20] The company also has a drug in late stage clinical development for epidermolysis bullosa (EB).[21]
Crowley also served in the United States Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer. He completed a six-month tour of active duty at the Center for Naval Intelligence in Virginia in 2007.[22] He was assigned to a Navy Reserve unit at the United States Special Operations Command.
Crowley is a member of the 2009 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.[23]
In the spring of 2008, Crowley was considered as a potential candidate for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in New Jersey to oppose incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg. He did not run due to family and military obligations.[22] Crowley served from 2008 to 2009 as the Honorary Chairman of Building the New Majority, a Continuing Political Committee, the New Jersey state version of a Political Action Committee, that seeks "..to identify, develop and empower local candidates from township committee to the state legislature".[24]
He has been involved in championing numerous public policy causes, most notably in the rare disease and healthcare space. On July 22, 2008, he spoke before several hundred Congressional staffers in the Cannon House Caucus Room on the subject of biotechnology medicines and the protection of patient safety. In July 2010, he testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about the state of pediatric rare diseases research. He is widely credited with leading the effort in 2010 to form the bi-partisan Congressional Caucus on Rare Diseases in Washington, DC.
In April 2011, Crowley stepped down from his CEO position at Amicus. At that time, it was speculated that Crowley would run for the Senate as the Republican candidate against Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in 2012. Crowley did not run for Senate and after completing temporary active duty with the U.S. Navy Reserve, he returned to his position as CEO of Amicus in August 2011.[25][26][27]
On June 3, 2013, Senator Frank Lautenberg died, meaning that Governor Chris Christie possessed the ability to appoint a replacement. Crowley was mentioned as a potential replacement, along with Thomas Kean, Tom Kean, Jr., Kim Guadagno, Jon Bramnick, and Joe Kyrillos;[28] ultimately, Christie selected Jeffrey Chiesa for the post.
Crowley is active in a number of social service and philanthropic efforts. In 2009, he was named to the national board of directors to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America[29] and became the national chairman of the organization in 2014.[30]
In 2007, Crowley received the Edward Murphy Award from the University of Notre Dame, given to distinguished lawyers in private practice who have distinguished themselves in the profession of law.[31]
Crowley was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from Neumann University in Aston, Pennsylvania where he also delivered the commencement address in 2009. In 2010, he delivered the commencement address at Penn State University, Lehigh Valley. He is a Henry Crown fellow of the Aspen Institute. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his business leadership and philanthropic efforts, including: New Jersey Biotechnology Industry Organization's 2011 "Dr. Sol J. Barer Award for Vision, Innovation and Leadership"; the 2009 Make A Wish Foundation of New Jersey's "Humanitarian of the Year"; the "2007 E&Y New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year".
In 2011, Crowley and his wife, Aileen, were given the Family Exemplar Award for their work toward finding treatments for rare diseases by the University of Notre Dame. He received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Notre Dame and was commencement speaker for the class of 2020 graduation, held in May 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.[32]
Crowley was profiled in The Wall Street Journal by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Geeta Anand.[33] Anand expanded the profile of Crowley into a book published in 2006, The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million – And Bucked the Medical Establishment – In a Quest to Save His Children (ISBN 978-0060734398).[34]
Harrison Ford and Double Feature films optioned the rights to produce a film inspired by Anand's book and the Crowley family.[35] In April 2009, CBS Films began filming this major motion picture about the Crowley family's quest to save their children's lives. The film, titled Extraordinary Measures[36][37] was released nationwide on January 22, 2010. Directed by Tom Vaughan, Extraordinary Measures stars Brendan Fraser as John Crowley and Keri Russell as Aileen Crowley, and also executive producer Harrison Ford as "Dr. Robert Stonehill" who is a composite character based primarily on Dr. William Canfield and inspired as well by other doctors Crowley worked with.[38] The film premiered at the University of Notre Dame a week before the official release,[39][40] and the family attended the red carpet premier in Manhattan.[41] The film was featured at the Re:Image Film Festival held by the Diocese of Trenton in 2010. Crowley attended the event to speak about his family and the film adaptation.[42]
Crowley has also written a personal memoir entitled Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope and Joy, coauthored with Ken Kurson. It was published by New Market Press in January 2010 to coincide with the release of Extraordinary Measures.[43]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
John Francis Crowley (born April 7, 1967) is the president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the world’s largest biotechnology advocacy organization. He served as the chairman and CEO of Amicus Therapeutics. He co-founded Novazyme Pharmaceuticals with William Canfield, which was later acquired by Genzyme Corporation, and founded Orexigen Therapeutics. In 2006, he was profiled in the book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million – And Bucked the Medical Establishment – In a Quest to Save His Children by Geeta Anand. In 2010, Crowley released his memoir, Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope, and Joy. Crowley and his family were the inspiration for the movie Extraordinary Measures starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser in 2010. Crowley was named CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization in 2023.
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, diplomat, and former naval officer who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the administration of President Barack Obama. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1985 to 2013 and later served as the first and only U.S. special presidential envoy for climate from 2021 to 2024. Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2004 presidential election. Born into the prominent Forbes family in Aurora, Colorado, Kerry grew up in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. In 1966, after graduating from Yale University, he enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve, ultimately attaining the rank of lieutenant. During the Vietnam War, Kerry served a brief tour in South Vietnam. While commanding a Swift Boat, he sustained three wounds in combat with the Viet Cong, for which he earned three Purple Heart medals. Kerry was also awarded the Silver Star Medal and the Bronze Star Medal for conduct in separate military engagements. After completing his active military service, Kerry returned to the United States and became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He gained national recognition as an anti-war activist, serving as a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War organization. Kerry testified in the Fulbright Hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he described the United States government's policy in Vietnam as the cause of war crimes. In 1972, Kerry was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Massachusetts's 5th congressional district, losing to Republican Paul W. Cronin in the general election. He subsequently worked as a radio talk show host, as the executive director of an advocacy organization while attending law school, and later in private legal practice. In 1982, Kerry was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts as the running mate of Michael Dukakis's ticket. In 1984, Kerry was elected to the United States Senate representing Massachusetts. During his career in the Senate, Kerry won the Democratic nomination in the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries, but lost the general election to incumbent Republican president George W. Bush. In January 2013, Kerry was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, serving through the rest of Obama's second term. During his tenure, he initiated the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks and negotiated agreements restricting the nuclear program of Iran, including the 2013 Joint Plan of Action and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In 2015, Kerry signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on behalf of the United States. In January 2021, Kerry returned to government, serving as the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate under President Joe Biden. In March 2024, Kerry left this position to work on Biden's 2024 presidential campaign. Kerry was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Biden in May 2024.
Robert Crowley (Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole or Crule, c. 1517 – 18 June 1588), was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman among Marian exiles at Frankfurt. He seems to have been a Henrician Evangelical in favour of a more reformed Protestantism than the king and the Church of England sanctioned. Under Edward VI, he joined a London network of evangelical stationers to argue for reforms, sharing a vision of his contemporaries Hugh Latimer, Thomas Lever, Thomas Beccon and others of England as a reformed Christian commonwealth. He attacked as inhibiting reform what he saw as corruption and uncharitable self-interest among the clergy and wealthy. Meanwhile, Crowley took part in making the first printed editions of Piers Plowman, the first translation of the Gospels into Welsh, and the first complete metrical psalter in English, which was also the first to include harmonised music. Towards the end of Edward's reign and later, Crowley criticised the Edwardian Reformation as compromised and saw the dissolution of the monasteries as replacing one form of corruption by another. On his return to England after the reign of Mary I, Crowley revised his chronicle to represent the Edwardian Reformation as a failure, due to figures like Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. Crowley's account of the Marian martyrs represented them as a cost mostly paid by commoners. The work became a source for John Foxe's account of the period in his Actes and Monuments. Crowley held church positions in the early to mid-1560s and sought change from the pulpit and within the church hierarchy. Against the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, Crowley was a leader in the renewed vestments controversy, which eventually lost him his clerical posts. During the dispute he and other London clergy produced a "first Puritan manifesto". Late in life Crowley was restored to several church posts and appears to have charted a more moderate course in defending it from Roman Catholicism and from nonconformist factions that espoused a Presbyterian church polity.
John Symonds (12 March 1914 – 21 October 2006) was an English writer known for his biographies of Aleister Crowley, as well as novels, plays, and children's books. His literary career spanned several decades, covering a wide range of genres and subjects. Symonds met Crowley in 1946 and became his literary executor, later writing multiple biographies, including The Great Beast (1952) and The Magic of Aleister Crowley (1958). While initially intrigued, he grew critical of Crowley’s practices, particularly regarding sex and drug use. Beyond his Crowley biographies, Symonds wrote fiction and children’s books, such as The Magic Currant Bun (1953).
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Madam C.J. Walker
