Janet:
Ryan and Greg, thank you so much. That's not fair that I have to come up here after that moment.
Hey, everyone, don't get up and leave. We're going to be doing the Family Leadership Award and the Maxon Award and we would love for you to be able to stay and celebrate with us the people in this room. Thank you for those of you who are staying.
First, we're going to be introducing the Family Leadership Award. 2017 was the inaugural year for the EHDI Family Leadership Award. During the last several decades, it has become increasingly clear that EHDI only exists to improve the well-being of babies and families. Symbiotically engaged families are central to the success of EHDI programs and, more specifically, to the success of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, and this Family Leadership Award has been established for that honor.
Over the past several years, we've had a committee that's looked at this. Today, I thought I just wanted to take a moment and introduce Laura, who helps us tabulate the scores and get the committee together. I just wanted to celebrate Laura for a minute as she announces the nominees and winner today.
Laura Gramer and her husband, Brendan, transplants from Chicago, reside in North Seattle. They are deaf parents to two deaf sons. She has a bachelor of science degree in occupational therapy. Laura is involved with Washington Hands and Voices in the DHH community in Seattle and the Washington state. Laura is a former commissioner on the Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities. I'm honored to be up here with Laura today, who's going to present the award.

Laura Gramer:
Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here this afternoon. My name is Laura Gramer. I am here on behalf of the NCHAM Family Advisory Committee. We were tasked to identify the 2025 Family Leadership Award winner. We had seven excellent and worthy candidates, both groups and individuals. I know I say this every year, but it is, in fact, the truth. We have great and excellent candidates. These are the seven nominees. If you are here, you are welcome to come up. Oh, that wasn't me. I didn't move forward.
First nominee is Valerie James Abbott. Michelle John. Oh, I was trying to follow the prompter here. Traci Penland, Anita Dowd, Kim Reimann, Miranda Nerlund, and Natasha Rich. All of them are fantastic leaders. And I'm afraid the cat is out of the bag!
Unfortunately, Kim was unable to attend today. Kim Reimann, the winner of this year's award. I'm wondering if anyone from Wyoming is here and would be willing to accept this award on Kim's behalf. Anyone in the room? Oh, excellent. Thank you.
Oh, I had a lot of things that I was supposed to say about the award, but I distracted by jumping ahead. Kim had an incredible impact in Wyoming. She's involved with Hands and Voices as well as the EHDI system there in the state. She is a proud mother of three children, two daughters and an oldest son. Her oldest daughter, the middle child, was identified as deaf at birth and the second daughter was identified with a hearing loss later in life.
Kim and her husband are very involved as advocates for families with deaf and hard-of-hearing children and played many roles in their community. Kim was involved in the Wyoming Hands and Voices chapter, the assistant director, the Gibbs director, and involved in family education, also was a member of the advisory board for Wyoming EHDI and the early intervention for Wyoming. And she has a lot of wonderful work at the legislative level.
She also was a part of the establishment of the Hearing Aid for Children program and in 2024, she brought in many families for a collaborative project. They wanted to convince the state legislators for more funding and sustainable funding with great success.
We want to honor her dedication, her incredible generosity with her time, and for always going above and beyond for families with deaf and hard-of-hearing children. The nominees of Kim said that this much work would not have possible in the state of Wyoming without her. So, congratulations Kim and her colleagues on her behalf.

Kali:
Hi, my name is Kali. I'm an audiologist and I work side-by-side with Kim at the clinic. She's an incredible human being and I'm going to try not to cry. And she's not here today because she's sick because she's working with all the kids. All the children gave her all the things.
She's an incredible human and nobody deserves it more, and I'm just so grateful I get to work with her every day. Thanks.

Janet:
Karl White will now be here to present the Maxon Award, but I'm going to go off-script for a minute. Sorry, Karl, Mandy, wherever you are. Sorry.
I just wanted to take one moment. Several people have come up to me and talked about how important this conference is for them and how much Dr. White, Karl, has done for the EHDI system. I know if he tries to respond to this, he's going to give all the credit back to all of his team, which is true, but I just wanted all of us for a moment just to take this moment during this time and this era of EHDI system to really thank Karl for all the work that he's done.

Karl White:
Thank you so much. But what Jan said is true, it's all of you who... Thank you. And the greatest blessing of my life has been to be a part of this and watch the marvelous things that all of you do.
And as I think about our nominees for the Maxon Award, there are 14 of them this year, I was thinking if I were to sit down and try to put together a committee of people who could lead us into the next 10 years and take advantage of all the incredible things that are possible for EHDI programs, it would be this group of people. They are people who are researchers, who are clinicians, who are advocates, who are parents, and they're doing incredible work. And so, I'd like to invite now the people who are listed here. You don't have to wait until I read your name, although I will read it, but please come out so we can honor you and what you have done.
So Jessica Bergman, Kristina Blaiser, Denise Eng, the Fundacion Oir es Vivir, Gloria Transcostal, Gayla Guignard, Karrie Hughes, Lisa Hunter, Mandy Jay, Cindy Lawrence, Barb Myers, Robyn Miller, Tammy O'Hollearn, Carrie Spangler, and Michelle Wagner-Escobar. Most of them are there.
In recognition of all they've done, we have a book that we'd like to give them called Leading Lightly. It's an award-winning book that focuses on... Part of the inscription says, "Because you are a leader in the EHDI system, we know you understand the importance of being serious about your work. We hope this book, Leading Lightly, will help you to continue to pursue your passions with lightness, free of excessive worry, stress, and frustration. We applaud what you've already accomplished and look forward to hearing about your future achievements."
So this is a remarkable group of people, but they're like a lot of you. I mean, we could have had 850 nominees for the Maxon Award. It's really a credit to all of you for what you have accomplished, and we look forward to those accomplishments continuing and being done in conjunction with so many other wonderful people here.
The winner or the selection for the Maxon Award this year is a committee of seven people, including the three previous Maxon Award recipients, and then four other people. The winner this year is Jessica Bergeron.

Jessica Bergeron:
Thank you so much. Georgia representing! Thank you. Yeah, I really have to say that it's the group of people right over here who have made this all possible. The folks in Georgia are the ones who are innovative, loving, kind, fabulous groups of people to work with, and they are just doing an amazing job for the children in Georgia. So, I just have to send this right back to them and say thank you so much for all of the work that you've done.

Karl White:
If you'd like to learn more about all of the nominees, both for the Maxon Award and for the Family Leadership Award, the letters of nomination for each of them are posted on the conference website under the awards tab. And read about them and be impressed because they're an impressive group of people.
Thank you so much for coming today. It was a great first day. And, Janet, do you have things you want to say? [inaudible 00:12:27]. Great first day. We hope you'll come tomorrow again. This evening has been left open so you can do what most people in the evaluation say is the most important thing about the conference and that's networking with each other and learning from each other. So we hope you'll take advantage of that time and we'll see you bright and early in the morning. Thank you so much.