Action Group
Actively Involved in Promoting Child Window Safety
Jim Graham – Executive Director**
A former University of Minnesota teacher in social psychology and urban studies, who also taught in the University of Wisconsin system, Jim Graham is also a former research director and publications director for Metropolitan Sociometrics Research Institute. He directed community-based research projects, including studies of alcoholism and transiency among Native Americans in Minnesota (as well as community-based urban planning and revitalization projects). Co-founder of the Herbert Blumer Tropical Reserve in Costa Rica, Jim also worked doing environmental research and water resource planning for the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
Jim is a Licensed General Contractor and a Licensed Real Property Appraiser. Mr. Graham, an Urban Planning and Development Director has taught and consulted in this field for many years. His work includes the “Self Sufficiency for Urban Indians in Housing” and acting as Project Manager and Principal Planner for the “Ventura Village Comprehensive Land Use Master Plan.” The Ventura Village master plan has been called “the best New Urbanist Planning to be found in the United States” by planning officials from at least two other U.S. cities. This planning includes the revitalization of a troubled inner-city neighborhood with the construction of several hundred new affordable housing units without the displacement of original population.
Jim Graham started the National Association for Child Window Safety in 2011 and is the charter Executive Director of this non-profit organization. Jim is strongly committed to expanding efforts to prevent the needless 5,000 child falls that annually occur from unsafe windows.
He became involved with this in 2006 when two children fell from buildings he had worked on developing. One child died and the other, Laela, became the namesake of the Minnesota State Law known as “Laela's Law”. Jim wrote the legislation and worked diligently to get the law passed to provide safety screens on multi-family housing units to protect children from falling out of windows. This land mark legislation not only protects children, but has proven to be a sustainable method of reducing maintenance costs on apartment rental units.
Jim Tidwell, Code Consultant**
Jim is a Fire Protection Consultant with 40 years in fire service, retired from Fort Worth Fire Department and ICC. He is a recognized leader in the fire service as well as an outspoken supporter of the International Code Council.
Jim served in the Fort Worth, Texas Fire Department for 30 years, serving in every rank. He then led the Fire Service Activities Team at the ICC where he spearheaded efforts to provide opportunities for fire service input and influence in the ICC Code Development Process. Jim has actively promoted fire service issues on a local, state, and national level for many years and has testified before the U.S. Congress and state and local legislatures throughout the United States. Some of his activities include service on ICC and NFPA code development committees, working with legislative and executive branches of government to ensure fire service issues are recognized.
Jim was presented the Olin Greene Outstanding Fire Prevention Service Award. This is a lifetime achievement award that was established to recognize those who have dedicated their career to fire prevention and public safety and have achieved substantial accomplishments. Mr. Tidwell has been a tireless advocate for fire prevention and life safety, working closely with NASFM and several other national fire service organizations to help facilitate a cohesive and effective national approach.
Tom Houlihan, AIA **
Tom received a bachelor's degree in architecture from Iowa State University in 1977. For the next five years, he was co-owner of a Seattle architectural firm that planned and designed buildings for health-care organizations throughout the US. He relocated to La Crosse in 1982 and founded Houlihan & Associates, an architectural firm that planned and designed health-care and educational facilities. He later was the president and chief executive officer of CAData Corp., which started in 1992 in La Crosse and developed CAD based resource management systems that clients could operate. Houlihan joined Gensler, an international design firm, in 1994 and opened the Gensler office in La Crosse. Tom led the Information Solutions Practice of Gensler and was named a partner and vice president in December 1999. Retiring in 2014, Tom now supports decision making in the industries he has served and continues to develop a variety of enterprises.
Wayne Parsons, Attorney at Law**
Safety and preventing injuries is the mission of Hawai‘i trial lawyer Wayne Parsons. His clients through their cases, change harmful behavior and practices by holding the person, corporation or government accountable for the avoidable, wrongful injury or death. Wayne has made it his mission to help educate people so they avoid injury and hopefully will never need his services.
Lisa Dau, RN, BSN
Lisa is the Injury Prevention Coordinator for Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women and Children, Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Lisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, School of Nursing. Lisa is a professional nurse with more than 28 years practical experience in hospital and community environments primarily in the Maternal/Child and Pediatric setting. She is established in injury prevention education with particular emphasis for childhood safety, including safe sleep education, child passenger safety, drowning prevention, shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma prevention, poison prevention, burn/scald prevention and window fall prevention. She is board certified in lactation consultation (IBCLC) for mother-baby couplets in the hospital and outpatient settings. She is experienced in developing, implementing and evaluating programs (i.e. Period of PURPLE Crying, Child Passenger Safety, Safe Sleep Hospital employee training and policies, Hawai‘i Home Visiting Network Injury Prevention Curriculum). She facilitates and coordinates Keiki Injury Prevention Coalition and Safe Sleep Hawai‘i programs by building coalition membership, networking between membership and community, grant writing and leading quarterly membership meetings.
Lisa provides advocacy for childhood injury prevention in public media, meetings with key people and legislative testimony. She is a member of the Keiki Caucus, a bipartisan group advocating improvements for the well-being of Hawai‘i youths. Lisa is a board member representing the private sector business for the Department of Health (DOH) State Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Board (STBIAB) since 2017. Lisa lives on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i where she was born and raised. She is married and has two grown children.
Jan Berichon, OT
Jan was the child injury prevention health educator for Randall Children’s Hospital Safety Center in Portland, OR, for more than ten years.
Her 30 plus years of experience in the field of Occupational Therapy, gave her the opportunity to work in both hospital and school-based environments. While in that capacity, she provided direct and consultative services to children and adults in mental health, traumatic brain injury and educational settings. She served as the Columbia region liaison for the Oregon Statewide Traumatic Brain Injury Team, assisting students who transition from the hospital back to school.
Jan has a knowledge base of pediatric injury prevention. She works with families whose children have been hospitalized due to injury. She provides one to one education, safety classes for caregivers and “train the trainer” sessions. She has developed many injury prevention educational handouts that both educate and support families and professionals. Several of these handouts promote awareness of child window falls and prevention.
She is a member of “Stop at 4”, a child window-fall prevention program co-founded by Randall Children’s Hospital in 2010. The program is comprised of several community injury prevention partners and includes families whose children have experienced injuries or death following a window fall.
Brian Houlihan, BS
Brian graduated from Iowa State University and spent time farming and serving as a vice president in his local bank prior to purchasing, as senior partner, Lansing Housing Products in 2003. As a manufacturer of high-end security screens and security storm doors, he was approached by child advocates in 2006 regarding providing a child window safety screen. Developing a passive solution for preventing child window falls became a passion from that time forward. In 2017, he was awarded a patent for invention of the Tough Tek Metals® safety screen designed to prevent child window falls.
Brian has spent many years on local and state boards promoting economic development, assistance for disabled citizens, and community foundation service.
Dr. Stacey Quintero-Wolfe, MD, FAANS, Associate Professor, Residency Program Director, and Director of Neurointerventional Surgery at Wake Forest School of Medicine
Dr. Wolfe graduated from a six-year combined BA/MD program at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and completed neurosurgical residency at the University of Miami, followed by a Cerebrovascular/Skull Base and an Endovascular fellowship. She served as a Commander in the United States Navy as Chief of Neurosurgery at Tripler Army Medical Center before joining Wake Forest in 2013.
She serves as an editorial reviewer for the Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery, World Neurosurgery and the Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery.
Dr. Wolfe has served as the Chair of the AANS/CNS Section on Women in Neurosurgery, Chair of the AANS Young Neurosurgeons Committee, Chair of the CSNS AANS Caucus, and on the Executive Committee of the Congress of Neurological Surgery and the AANS/CNS Cerebrovascular Section. She has served on the AANS Board of Directors, the Washington Committee, and has most recently been chosen as an ABNS Scholar. Additionally, she has been recognized for her humanitarian work in Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua with the Young Neurosurgeons Public Service Citation.
Meri-K Appy, BS
Ms. Appy is widely regarded as the fire and emergency services' leading advocate for public safety education. She specializes in simplifying injury prevention and
disaster preparedness messages, concepts, and strategies for greatest impact, especially for audiences at highest risk. She has appeared on many national television networks and programs, including The TODAY Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, Dateline NBC, CBS’ The Early Show, Good Morning America, and HGTV.
Ms. Appy spearheaded the development and national delivery of three award‐winning injury prevention programs including Risk Watch (NFPA), The Home Safety Literacy Project (Home Safety Council) and Start Safe: A Fire and Burn Safety Program for Preschoolers and Their Families (Home Safety Council). Now head of her own consulting company, Meri‐K is working on a number of national fire safety initiatives, including Vision 20/20 and an exciting school-based program from the National Center for Prevention Initiatives called Sound Off with the Home Fire Safety Patrol. Ms. Appy was the recipient of the 2012 Anne W. Phillips Award for Leadership in Fire Safety Education and the Mason Lankford Award for Fire Service Leadership from the Congressional Fire Services Institute. She graduated with honors from Smith College with a Bachelor's degree in French.
Brian Johnston, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Johnston is chief of Pediatrics at Harborview Medical Center, with an interest in clinic and community partnerships to help all children to stay healthy. He is particularly interested in injury prevention, integrating mental health with primary care and the care of children with mild traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Johnston earned his M.D. at the University of California and his M.P.H. from the UW. He is an expert in public health and injury prevention, and directs a partnership that brings legal aid attorneys into the clinic to help patients solve legal problems that affect their health.
Ray Reynolds, Certified Public Manager, Joint Terrorism Task Force
Ray Reynolds currently serves as the Director of Fire and EMS for the City of Nevada. He oversees fire department operations and serves as a sworn peace officer within the Nevada Public Safety Department.
Ray raised awareness of a state wide fire prevention message while serving as the State Fire Marshal for Iowa between the years 2010 and 2013. Ray developed a state-wide smoke alarm installation program within Iowa that was responsible for over 50,000 smoke alarms being installed in homes throughout Iowa. He will continue to implement community risk reduction programs within the City of Nevada.
Ray began his law enforcement service as a reserve deputy sheriff in 1987, and became a full-time municipal police officer in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1988. Ray served as a police officer and Crime Scene Technician for the City of Iowa City from 1991-1996. He has been a member of the fire service since 1986, and held certifications as a fire inspector I, firefighter II, firefighter I, paramedic, bomb technician, hazardous materials technician, fire investigator I, and is a certified public manager (CPM). Ray works part time as a paramedic/firefighter for the Indianola Fire Department and has served on six different volunteer/combination fire departments in the last 25 years.
Ray joined the State Fire Marshal's Office in 1996, and was detailed to the State of Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center in 2006, where he has been assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Ray has received extensive specialized training in terrorism, intelligence, informants, explosives and other topics, and he has headed up two major cases within the JTTF during his tenure at the Des Moines FBI Office.
Ray served on the Board of Directors for the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM) and on the Board of Directors for the American Red Cross Central Iowa Chapter. In July of 2015 he was elected to the prestigious Fire and Life Safety Section board of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
Ray is a 22 year veteran with the Iowa Army National Guard serving in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 and retired a Sergeant First Class E7 with an Honorable Discharge.
**Board Members
The National Association for Child Window Safety would like to acknowledge the effort of the late Jim W. Sealy who was instrumental in establishing the initial version of the ICC code section dealing with children falling from windows. He continued to fight for better standards over the years. His participation and support of our efforts was greatly appreciated.