Donor RegistryLifeGift Breaks Ground at New Corporate Headquarters
HOUSTON – Exactly 20 years to the day the organ procurement organization was founded (August 27, 1987), LifeGift has broken ground on its new Houston headquarters at 2510 Westridge, just two miles south of the Texas Medical Center. When the building opens in early 2008, LifeGift will be the only Texas organ and tissue recovery organization to house on-site operating rooms for tissue and, possibly, organ recovery. And less than a dozen other sites in the country can claim the distinction.
“Some may wonder why we’ve taken the path to build our own headquarters,” said LifeGift President and Chief Executive Officer Sam Holtzman. “It’s simple, really. Our industry must do everything in its power to promote an environment which increases organ and tissue donation rates – and saves the lives of men, women and children needing transplants. Our new building will help us do just that.”
THE BUILDING
Potentially hundreds more lifesaving organs and tissues will be provided to patients when LifeGift corporate and Southeast Region staff move into the new building and begin utilizing its state-of-the-art recovery suites. LifeGift’s new 26,000-square-foot home will possess 50 percent more space than the company’s existing office and will also feature an education center, conference rooms, a donor family/volunteer consultation room and a career center, with future plans for a donor memorial garden.
The groundbreaking marked the “official” start of the complete renovation and expansion of the existing two-story structure at the site. Prior to LifeGift’s purchase of the facility two years ago, the building served as a firearms museum and, later, St. Catherine’s Montessori school.
Architects Bill Burwell and Michael Morton have designed a contemporary blue glass addition that will serve as the entrance to the stucco and concrete structure. Inside, warm, earth tones and rich textures will greet employees and visitors alike, beginning in the reception area and lobby where donor quilts will adorn a wall. Fretz Construction will execute the plan.
“Functionality has also remained a priority,” said LifeGift Construction Manager Jessica Leibold. “Plans include ‘temperature zones’ to economize energy usage, a high-density filing system, and new multimedia capabilities.”
20 YEARS OF LIFESAVING RESULTS
In 1987, three Houston hospitals – then Hermann Hospital, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and The Methodist Hospital – joined forces to create the Gulf Coast Independent Organ Procurement Organization. Two years later, hospitals in 67 counties in West Texas and nine counties around Fort Worth had joined the network to forge an even more powerful partnership for saving and enhancing lives that soon after was renamed LifeGift Organ Donation Center.
Since its inception two decades ago, LifeGift, working closely with its hospital partners, has experienced unparalleled success in making more than 10,000 organ transplants and 100,000 tissue transplants possible. Other milestones in LifeGift’s 20-year history include:
- 1995 – LifeGift opens its 24-hour, state-of-the-art Communications Center in Houston, which continues to serve as a model for organ and tissue recovery organizations around the world.
- 2001 – Memorial Hermann Hospital, a LifeGift partner hospital, is recognized for the first time as the top organ donor hospital in the country. This accolade has remained since 2001.
- 2003 – LifeGift begins its EMS Referral Program, collaborating with emergency medical units to call in tissue referrals from the scenes of accidents.
- 2005 – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services honors team from LifeGift and its partner hospitals for achieving a 75 percent “conversion” rate – when potential donors become actual donors.
- 2006 – North Texan Carlton Blackburn, 93, becomes the nation’s oldest organ donor when his family donates his liver through LifeGift.
“I’m honored to serve as a leader of an organization that has a single mission: saving the lives of individuals desperately seeking a second chance at life,” Holtzman said. “We are truly blessed to have been given the opportunity to serve others in the way that we do.”
8/27/07