Background

The Kelly Heinz-Grundner Foundation (KHG) was established in 2005 by Chris Grundner as a tribute to his beloved wife and best friend, Kelly, who died of a grade-four malignant brain tumor in September of 2004 at the age of 31. Kelly bravely faced and valiantly fought her disease for over two years and in doing so, she was both an inspiration and a source of strength and hope to everyone around her. Yet, in spite of Kelly's strong constitution and her unbelievable determination, she ultimately was not a match for this terrible disease.

Kelly's struggle and death will always be an incredible source of sadness to everyone who knew her – especially to Chris. Nevertheless, despite the pain in his heart, Chris was steadfast in his desire to make something good come out of everything that had happened. It didn’t take long for Chris to realize that the best way for him to do this (and also for him to heal) was to dedicate his life to helping others who were enduring or were destined to endure the same battle that Kelly suffered through. With that, Chris decided to resign from his job as a Senior Vice President at JPMorgan Chase and re-direct all of his God-given energy, passion, knowledge and skills into altering the course of this disease. Through the formation of KHG, Chris’ vision was to ultimately see a day when brain tumors were no longer the death sentence they often are today.

With that in mind, Chris decided to research existing brain tumor organizations to find out what theirmissions were and to understand how they were organized and managed. In the process of doing so he found that there were significant gaps that existed in terms of the services they provided. Specifically, no one seemed to be focused on the one thing that Chris felt most passionate about – Awareness and Education. Instead, everyone seemed to be solely focused on funding research to find a cure and supporting those who have already been diagnosed. While these initiatives are incredibly important, Chris felt strongly that someone needed to focus on doing the awareness work that no one else was doing and, ultimately, bring this disease out of the dark and into the national spotlight.