We are honored to have two Honorary Chairs for the 2007 Power of Nursing Leadership Event, Senator Dick Dubin and Mrs. Ann Lurie.

Senator Dick Durbin

Senator Durbin, a Democrat from Springfield, is the 47th U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois and the first Illinois senator to serve on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee in more than a quarter of a century. He is the state’s senior senator and convenor of the bipartisan Illinois delegation.

Elected to the U.S. Senate on November 5, 1996 and re-elected in 2002, Sen. Durbin fills the seat left vacant by the retirement of his long-time friend and mentor, U.S. Senator Paul Simon.

The House author of landmark legislation to ban smoking on commercial airline flights, Sen. Durbin has worked in the Senate to protect children from the harm caused by tobacco. For his work, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Lung Association. In 1999, Sen. Durbin was honored as the American Public Health Association’s “Legislator of the Year,” and in 2001 he received the American Medical Association's Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Government Service.Among his other health achievements, Sen. Durbin has worked successfully for increased federal funding to prevent childhood asthma, increase immunizations and expand medical research. He has successfully fought to increase the share of federal funding dedicated to combating AIDS worldwide.

He has also been a leader in promoting organ and tissue donation. In the spring of 2004, Sen. Durbin put forth a plan to give small businesses affordable choices among private health insurance plans and expand access to coverage for their employees

In January of 2007, Sen. Durbin along with Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), introduced legislation called the Nurse Education, Expansion, and Development (NEED) Act, that would address one of the major causes of the nationwide nursing shortage – an insufficient number of nurse educators – by providing grants to colleges to improve their ability to educate nursing students.

Sen. Durbin is married to Loretta Schaefer Durbin. They have three children and one grandchild. The Durbins reside in Springfield.

Mrs. Ann Lurie

Ann Lurie is President of Lurie Investments and The Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation and Founder and President of AID Village Clinics, Inc., an infectious disease initiative for Maasai in rural Kenya. In cooperation with Save the Children Foundation and ONE Love Africa, she funded construction of 20 rural schools in Ethiopia and is a patron of Riders for Health, a UK based charity.

At Northwestern University, where she is a Member of the Board of Trustees, Mrs. Lurie endowed the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center as well as academic chairs in cancer research and funds to conduct Adolescent Medicine Trial for HIV/AIDS research at Children’s Memorial Research Center.
She was awarded the Honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the University of Michigan, where she funded the Robert H. Lurie Engineering Center, the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Tower, the Biomedical Engineering Center and Solid State Laboratory, the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies in the School of Business as well as the Marion Elizabeth Blue Professorship in Children and Family Studies in the School of Social Work.

In Chicago, Mrs. Lurie provided the lead gift to launch the Greater Chicago Food Depository Campaign, endowed the Lurie Garden and provided cornerstone funding for the Joan and Irving J. Harris Dance Theater. Over the past five years, she has been recognized as one of the leading philanthropists in the U.S. by Worth Magazine, Satisfaction Magazine of the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, Crain’s Business Chicago, Business Week Magazine and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Born and raised in Florida, Mrs. Lurie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from the University of Florida. She resides in Chicago and is the mother of 6 children ranging in age from 22-32.