2025 Governing Board

OFFICERS

Chair: Sameer Brahmavar (Chief Product Officer | Interlace Health) 

Vice Chair: Sean Kumer, MD, PhD, FACS (Vice President and Surgical Director, Liver Transplantation |The University of Kansas Health System)

Second Vice Chair: Carol Perry, RN, BSN, FACHE (Topeka, Kansas)

Immediate Past Chair: Stevan Whitt, MD (Chief Medical Officer | University of Missouri Health Care)

BOARD MEMBERS

Michael Borkon, MD (Mission Hills, Kansas)

Thomas Crouch, MD (Kansas City, Missouri)

Reagan Cussimanio, JD (Director of Governmental Affairs | The University of Kansas Health System)

Jeremy Drinkwitz (President | Mercy Hospital Joplin)

Michael R. Dunaway (President | Dunaway Consulting Group)

Gary Duncan, LFACHE (President Emeritus | Freeman Health System)

Anne Gulotta, (Leawood, Kansas)

Richard Muther, MD (Founding Partner | Kidney Associates of Kansas City)

Sarah Oakley, RN, MSN (Vice President, Chief Nursing Officer | North Kansas City Hospital)

Brad Warady, MD (Division Director, Pediatric Nephrology | Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City)

Andrew Widman, CLF (Senior Financial Advisor | Principal National Life Insurance Company)

2025 Advisory Board

OFFICER

Chair: Dana Buchmueller, RN (Intensive Care Unit | Research Medical Center)

BOARD MEMBERS

Doris C. Agwu, MPH (Assistant Dean, Inclusive Excellence | UMKC School of Medicine)

Tracie Baker (Donor Family Member | Kansas City, Missouri)

Christina Bishop, PhD (Chief of Laboratory Services | Midwest Transplant Network)

Marshaun Butler (Chief Operating Officer | Saint Luke’s Hospital Kansas City)

Jimi Cook, DVM, PhD, OTSC (Director of Thompson Laboratory for Regenerative Orthopaedics | University of Missouri Health Care)

Pranavkumar Dalal, MD (Nephrologist | Research Medical Center)

Wendy Doyle (President & CEO | United WE)

Jameson Forster, MD (Transplant Surgeon | Saint Luke’s Hospital Kansas City)

Will Gibson, MD (Surgical Director, Cardiac Transplantation, Associate Program Director, Congenital Cardiac Surgery Fellowship | Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City)

Christine Hamele (Assistant Vice President, Public Relations and Community Affairs | HCA Midwest Health System)

Jessica Heimes, DO (Transplant Surgeon, Mid-America Heart Institute | Saint Luke’s Hospital Kansas City)

George Herrera (Executive Vice President of Donor Services | MTF Biologics)

James D. Kaplan, MD (Pulmonary/Internal Medicine | Kansas Pulmonary & Sleep Specialists)

Amy Keith, RN (Assistant CNO | Wesley Medical Center)

Todd Murphy, MD (General and Critical Care Surgeon | Ascension Via Christi St. Francis)

Amy Peters, RN, MBA (Chief Nursing Officer | University Health)

Naftali Presser, MD (Transplant Surgeon | Research Medical Center)

Stephen Reintjes Jr., MD (Neurosurgeon | North Kansas City Hospital)

Yvette Richards, DMin (Director of Community Connections and Mission | St. James United Methodist Church)

Timothy Schmitt, MD (Director of Transplantation | The University of Kansas Health System)

Carole Thomas, RN (Vice President, Clinical Operations | KC Care)

Mark Wakefield, MD (Transplant Surgeon | University of Missouri Health Care)

EMERITUS BOARD MEMBERS

Thomas H. Estep, MD (Wichita, Kansas)

Gilbert Ross Jr., MD (University of Missouri Health Care)