Board of Directors

As a part of The Pacific Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit research organization, The Pacific Meso Center (PMC) is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors comprised of community leaders, patients, and family members of mesothelioma patients.

Our Board members include:

Hal Lieberman MHA - Chair

Hal Lieberman, MHA has been Chief Executive Officer and President of Hemo Therapeutics, Inc. since 2006 and served as its Vice President Of Strategic Development and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Lieberman has over thirty years of experience in health care management, marketing and consulting, in the areas of hospital administration, medical services, medical devices, diagnostic imaging, pharmaceuticals and bioinformatics.

From 1998 to 2006, Mr. Lieberman acted as a consultant, provided interim management. He was the Chief Executive Officer and President of HemaCare Corporation, a publicly-held blood products and services company since 1988. Mr. Lieberman acted as the vice president for MEDIQ Imaging Services from 1981 to 1988. He has been Director of China Yongxin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., since March 3, 2010. He served on the Board of Directors of HemaCare, Atopix Pharmaceutics and BioDiscovery, Inc. He served as a Director on the boards of a variety of health care and medical device companies. Mr. Lieberman is an Advisor to the U.S. Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which awards grants to biomedical research projects that benefit national defense and is a Senior Association of EXCEleration Management, a business development company.

Mr. Lieberman is also a Member of American College of Health Care Administrators, The Entrepreneurship Institute, and Southern California Biomedical Council. Mr. Lieberman has an Undergraduate degree from the City University of New York and a Master’s degree in Health Care Administration from The George Washington University.

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Anu Venkatesh - Treasurer

Anu is a Director of Accounting of Prepareyourbooks, a consulting firm that provides accounting services to individuals, corporations, and non-profit organizations. Her accounting experience includes, but is not limited to the preparation of financial statements, tax returns, complex financial budgets and personal financial statements to individuals, partnerships, corporations and LLCs. Her experience in GAAP accounting includes a wide range of industries including manufacturing, entertainment, real estate, and professional services.

Anu started her career in 1997 in India, where she was an executive accountant of an export company. She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in India. She immigrated to the USA in 1999 and continued her education at Cal State University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Business Administration and a major in Accounting. She has completed all her exams for the California Board of Accountancy and is working towards licensure requirements.

Anu’s passion is to help the community and provide services for a good cause. She holds 2 fundraising events each year for the Sankara Eye Foundation of the USA and Ekal Vidyalaya of the USA and has raised over $15,000 for these organizations. She volunteered to help The Pacific Meso Center coordinate their walk in Agoura Hills this year. Additionally, Anu volunteers her time to tutor high school children to prepare for their SAT’s.

Anu attributes her success to the huge support she receives from her daughter and husband.

Brian Deagon - Director

Brian Deagon reports and writes news and analysis on business and technology as a journalist for Investor’s Business Daily, based in Los Angeles.

His writing career began with a four-year stint as a photo-journalist and broadcaster for the U.S. Army. This included time as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne and providing news and entertainment to U.S. troops doing nuclear cleanup work on South Pacific islands.

After his military service Deagon returned to college to acquire a BA in Journalism at California State University, Northridge. He attended school while working as a full time journalist for the Los Angeles Business Journal. After graduating, Deagon then worked as a Los Angeles bureau correspondent for various technology publications.

He’s a senior reporter at Investor’s Business Daily, which produces and distributes a national daily newspaper and Website covering business, economic and political issues.

Deagon focuses on national issues and has reported on every major sector of the technology industry. His current beats include digital media and entertainment, social networking, Internet, cellular and computer technologies. Deagon also reports on the venture capital industry and entrepreneurship, private space enterprise, the tech economy and the broad field of information technology.

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Douglas Gamble - Director

Douglas Gamble is the international vice president of the western states conference of the heat and frost insulators and allied workers international union (formerly referred to as the Asbestos Workers union). His father started working as an Asbestos Worker in October 1941 in the naval shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. Douglas first worked in the Asbestos Worker trade in June of 1968 as a helper. He has personal experience with asbestos exposure, having lost both his father to mesothelioma in 1980 and his brother in-law in 1996. Many of his co-workers and friends have faced mesothelioma with courage and a will to fight for their life. He is totally committed to assisting in any way possible to raise awareness, increase research and making the latest treatment options accessible to those affected with mesothelioma.

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Dr. Warren S. Grundfest - Director

Dr. Warren S. Grundfest is the former Chair of Biomedical Engineering at UCLA where he holds appointments as Professor of Bioengineering, Electrical Engineering and Surgery. He serves as the Senior West Coast Clinical Advisor and Portfolio Manager for Nanomedicine and Biomaterials for TATRC (the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center of the U.S. Army). He serves as a Panel Member for several NIH Study Sections, and FDA and DoD review committees. He is one of the nation’s foremost experts on image-guided therapies and medical device development. His research interests include minimally invasive surgery, optical diagnostics, medical robotics, and advanced medical imaging technologies. Dr. Grundfest is past President of IMBISPS, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the AIMBE, and SPIE. He holds 15 patents, has 5 more pending, and has authored 200+ papers and 46 book chapters. He has been involved with multiple corporate and venture technology development programs.

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His passions are his two daughters, pursuing the defeat of Mesothelioma, his business, fly fishing and heli-skiing.