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Feature Stories

Susan Brown

by Michael Corey

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I tip-toed into her room in October 1993. She was just a few days removed from a bone marrow transplant. Susan Brown--my father's long-time colleague and friend--had graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State, finished law school atop her class, become the first female partner at the city's largest law firm and was one of the best corporate attorneys in the Midwest. Yet here she lay, bedridden by breast cancer. I was on the cusp of adolescence, and had never seen the exhaustion that comes with fighting for one's life. But I remember that her spirits were uplifting, while I felt sadness and confusion at seeing her in such a physical state. But my melancholy was remedied by Brown's courage. She helped me on that day, just by being herself. A 12-year survivor of breast cancer, she's been fighting for others ever since as an instrumental part of the Komen Columbus family.

Brown's passion for the cause of fighting breast cancer is borne not just from her personal experience, however, but her familial one. She's lost a grandmother and an aunt to the disease, and is determined to lose no one else. But she worries for her many nieces for whom a history of breast cancer resides on both sides of their families. "We're going to beat this before they have to worry about it," she says.

The fight goes beyond her relatives, too. Every month, someone whose life has been breached by breast cancer approaches Brown asking for help, for advice, for assurance. And every time, she tells them the same thing: "I had five positive lymph nodes and I'm still here."

The first day that Brown knew she would still be here was in 1994 when she endured her final chemotherapy treatment. There are few greater causes for celebration. And so, Brown and a friend traveled to Idaho to rest and revel in having emerged victorious.

Her vacation had one unfortunate consequence, however--she would miss the inaugural Columbus Race for the Cure. So in her stead, Bruce Henke, one of her law partners and one of my adopted uncles, participated in the Race. An avid runner, it was his way of honoring Brown's courageous fight.

"He raised like $3,400 in pledges. And they didn't have a pledge program, and they raised $10,000 that year," Brown recalls.

"They dragged me on right then," she continued, "so I was involved from the summer of '94 and the first thing I did was start the teams program, which started as a lawyer's challenge, and we did both teams and pledges."

And now, the team challenge raises about half of the proceeds the Race for the Cure. But Brown's role in Komen Columbus extended well beyond organization. Over the years, she has served in development, in management and as the president of the organization.

"You don't pick your assignments, this was given to me," Brown says. "I got the cancer assignment, and the more you get involved, the more you want to be involved, because every time you turn around there's somebody new."

Susan Brown was Development Director of Komen Columbus from 1996-1998; President Elect from 1998-2000; President from 2000-2002; and is
currently serving as interim President [until December 2005]. She is a corporate lawyer at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, where she has
been named one of America's top attorneys.