USBIA Welcomes New Board Member

Marilyn Price Spivack joins USBIA as its newest board member.  She is the Neurotrauma Outreach Coordinator at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, and she is the co-founder and past president of the National Head Injury Foundation, now known as the Brain Injury Association of America.

In 1975, she was a wife, mother, and business owner. Her life took a dramatic turn on March 15th when her youngest daughter, Deborah, sustained a serious traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a motor vehicle crash, resulting in a prolonged coma and lifelong disability. On August 15th of the following year, her son Jon was killed in a motorcycle accident. The family was forever changed, and her life took on a new meaning and direction.

After five years of frustration and fear in trying to find appropriate post-acute rehabilitation programs, she became aware that, despite the fact that TBI was epidemic in this country, there was little recognition of this by federal, state, and local government and all related agencies. On an April Sunday in 1980, Marilyn and her husband Martin gathered together a few families and concerned professionals to form the National Head Injury Foundation (NHIF), now renamed the Brain Injury Association of America (BIA). Since then, Marilyn Spivack has been an untiring voice for the recognition of traumatic brain injury as a major public health issue in this country.

She currently serves on numerous advisory boards including the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR).