Welcome to Our House:
A Conversation Between Siblings of Individuals with Cognitive and Development Disabilities (Weekend of Resilience)
Sunday, October 25th 12:00 - 1:00pm
Our special guests discuss their experiences growing up as siblings to those with cognitive and developmental disabilities. These are unique and special relationships in which many lessons have been learned!
About Rachel
Rachel Dill is the Director of Advancement & Community Engagement at Pathway to Possible. Prior to working at Pathway to Possible, she worked in Development at Special Olympics Massachusetts. Rachel’s sister, Jenny is a Special Olympics athlete. Jenny is Rachel’s inspiration for leaving the for-profit sector to pursue a line of work where she could connect with the mission. Rachel lives in Waltham with her husband, Jon and one year old daughter, Ella. Rachel loves to cook and has been making lots of new recipes during her time at home. She also enjoys running outside and skiing during the colder months.
About Brian
Brian Oates is the younger brother of Justin Oates, Special Olympic athlete extraordinaire and an inspiration to so many. Brian works for Kraft Sports + Entertainment and is a board member of Special Olympics of Massachusetts. He resides in Newton with his wife Maureen and their three sons.
About Jeff
Jeff Behrens is a serial biotech entrepreneur. He is currently CEO of GelMEDIX, an opthamology startup based on work from Mass Eye and Ear and UCLA. He is also founder and CEO of LabShares Newton, a biotech incubator for biotech startups run by biotech entrepreneurs. Formerly, Jeff was President and CEO of Siamab Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on developing antibodies targeting glycan targets in cancer that exited in 2019. Previously, Jeff served as Senior Director, Business Development and Operations at Edimer Pharmaceuticals (funded by Third Rock Ventures) and also worked at Alnylam and Biogen Idec, where co-founded Biogen’s Innovation Incubator. In 2003, Jeff sold his healthcare IT company, The Telluride Group, to mindSHIFT Technologies, a Fidelity-funded rollup. Jeff has a PhD from EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), an MS from the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), an MBA from MIT Sloan, and graduated from Harvard College. He teaches HST590, a PhD level course at MIT and lives in Newton and Wellfleet, MA.
About Melissa
Melissa is the younger sister of Anne Marie Leary who lives in a Pathway to Possible home. The two sisters grew up in Newton. After working in the internal audit field, Melissa is now a homemaker in Norwell with her husband and their four children. Melissa is so happy to participate on the board of P2P to help support the agency be the best it can be. She is also deep into the transition of sending her kids off to college. Now that Melissa’s parents are gone, she connects with fond memories of childhood by enjoying summers on Cape Cod where they summered as children. For relaxation, Melissa loves the beach, sitting fireside or perhaps in front of a reality tv show. Like everyone, she is looking for life to return to "normal" and to have some more in person interaction with family and friends. She eventually wants to start the process of returning to the working world.