My guests today are Mark P. Weingarten, Dr. Edmund F. LaGamma, and Susan Rose of the March of Dimes. Our discussion will be about the critical role The March of Dimes has played first in the cure of polio, and now with the problem of birth defects. We also will talk about how their organization is adjusting to the new economic realities of the recession, and how this has affected giving.

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Mr. Weingarten is a Partner in DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP (“DDWWW”), a White Plains law firm.  Mr. Weingarten concentrates his practice in real estate, land use and zoning, representing owners and developers of commercial and residential real property.  Mr. Weingarten also has a substantial commercial practice, as well as one of the fastest growing lobbying practices in New York State. Mr. Weingarten is involved in numerous philanthropic efforts.  He is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Metro Division of the March of Dimes, a member of the New York State March of Dimes Executive Committee, as well as serving for the last eight years as Chair of March for Babies, an event attended this past year by over 5,000 people and which raised over $750,000.  In December 2008, Mark received the March of Dimes, New York State Chapter Leo Jaffe Distinguished Service Award.

Mark Weingarten, Susan Rose, Richard Garfunkel, Dr. Edmund F. LaGamma

He also serves as a Board Member of the Westchester Business and Professional Leaders Board of the UJA-Foundation of New York and served for almost ten years as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Southern New York Chapter, as well as serving as its Vice Chairman.  He was also recently appointed a member of the Management Council of the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation.

Mr. Weingarten is a dean’s list graduate of Cornell University, B.S., I.L.R., 1981.  He also graduated with a Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law in 1984 with the following honors:  Barecca Labor Law Scholarship Award; Tauro Scholar and American Jurisprudence Book Award - Labor Law.

Dr. La Gamma  is a member of the Northern Metro Division’s Board of Directors (has been for many years) as well as a member of the Program Services Committee.  He also serves on the March for Babies Committee as Hospital Chair.  Dr. La Gamma has given many tours of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, allowing our volunteers and supporters to see first hand the devastating effects of premature birth.

He completed his residency in Pediatrics and then his fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He then spent a year as a post-Doctoral Scholar at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of the University of California in San Francisco as well as additional laboratory training in molecular neurobiology at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories on Long Island.

He is currently Professor of Pediatrics, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and is the Chief of the Division of Newborn Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics of the New York Medical College. He is The Director of The Regional Neonatal Center of the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital of Westchester Medical Center which serves over 30 hospitals, 35,000 births and covers 5,000 square miles in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York. He is also the Director of one of the largest Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Programs in the United States with 13 trainees. Dr. La Gamma is a practicing neonatologist and researcher who has authored over 75 peer-review basic and clinical research reports and 25 chapters in textbooks on various aspects of neonatal disease, nutrition, infection and development of the nervous system. He has trained hundreds of pediatrician’s and fellows in neonatal medicine that presently work in the Greater New York Area and across the United States.

Dr. La Gamma has received funding as the Principal Investigator from the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, the March of Dimes Foundation, the Dysautonomia Foundation and from industry. He has published extensively in the areas of development of the nervous system, neonatal infections and in the use of cytokine growth factors to augment immune function in premature neonates. He presently holds two patents: one on gene therapy in the central nervous system and another in use of cytokines to treat neonatal infections.

Basil O’Connor Award March of Dimes; American Academy of Pediatrics Young Investigator Award; Baskerville Chemistry Gold Medal, CCNY; President as well as Secretary of the New York Perinatal Society; elected Council Member of the International Society for Pediatric Research; member of the Executive Board of the Northern-Metro Chapter of the March of Dimes in New York; Who’s Who in America, Secretary of the Eastern Society for Pediatric Research.

Susan Rose is the Director of Program Services for the March of Dimes New York State Chapter and manages the Program Services Committee, responsible for determining which grants will be funded in the community. 

In this capacity she is responsible for the programmatic activities in the Northern Metro, Northeastern New York and Long Island Divisions of the March of Dimes. These activities include public and professional education, advocacy and community services. Susan oversees the competitive Community Service Grants process for the New York State Chapter and supervises program staff throughout the state. Susan has been with the March of Dimes for 16 years.