Paul and Jerrie will speak about Paul Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy condition and how he is working to find cures.
Paul Lore is a retired Federal agent with 32 years of experience within the Offices of the Inspector General and the FBI. During his time in the Federal government, Paul specialized in investigating fraud schemes against Government programs, including health care fraud and public corruption. After retiring, Paul began a second career as a Senior Investigator for Kaiser Permanente in their National Compliance Office in Oakland; a role he continued until becoming affected by a rare mitochondrial condition, Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) in 2019, which left him with bilateral legal blindness. Since his diagnosis, Paul has become a passionate advocate for the entire Low Vision/Blind community, sharing his time between commitments to the LHON community, the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and a Bay Area Low Vision Support and Advocacy group affiliated with the University of California Berkeley’s School of Optometry’s Low Vision Clinic. His various “hats” include creating informational materials regarding Bay Area resources, peer-to-peer support to members of the LHON community who are struggling with their own diagnosis and serving as the LHON “expert on Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a side-affect to vision loss.
Most recently Paul was asked to become an official Ambassador for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF) and has served as the LHON “Voice of the Patient” representative at the 2022 UMDF Mitochondrial Medicine Symposium. He also was selected as a patient member of the UMDF’s Clinical Trial Readiness Committee Paul has been married for 35 years to his wife, Jerrie, whom he met when they were both working for the FBI. Jerrie Lore is a retired Vice President for Wells Fargo Bank. During her 25 years in banking, Jerrie oversaw Credit Card Fraud Investigations, Security, Purchasing, Network Administration, Contract and Inventory Management, and Statement Operations for the West Coast. Upon her retirement from Wells Fargo, Jerrie began actively volunteering within her community at Stanford Valley Care Hospital, the Dublin Senior Center, and the Oakland Zoo. Her volunteer work eventually led her to a second career within the Public Works Department for the City of Dublin. A position she gave up after her husband’s diagnosis so that she could focus her energy on volunteering within the LHON community. She currently serves as the leader of the global Spouses/Partners support group, as well as the System Administrator for the LHON Collective, a newly formed non-profit whose goal is to create a global contact database, tracking LHON patients, doctors and researchers around the world.
Both Paul and Jerrie will be speaking on the topic of how a medical issue ignited a shared passion for service to others.
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