Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation Elects New Trustees, Advisors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 25, 2016

Contact: Leslie Fleming, Director of Communications and Annual Giving

313-745-1933

Leslie.Fleming@chmfoundation.org

(Detroit, MI—March 25, 2016) Children’s Hospital of Michigan Foundation has elected Steve J. Blahunka, Ajay Chawla and the Hon. Kurtis T. Wilder as trustees and Michael Klein, M.D. and Seetha Shankaran, M.D. as advisors for the Foundation’s Grants and Compliance Committee.

Steve J. Blahunka is a vice president and financial advisor for Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management in Farmington Hills. Blahunka previously held senior level positions for the Learning Care Group, Inc., a national franchiser of child care centers; Mapal, Inc., an automotive supplier; and Millcraft Paper.

Ajay Chawla is president and CEO of CS Fasteners, a retail and automotive company. Prior to founding CS Fasteners, Chawla held management positions at Lason Corporation, and CMGI. He established Toast for Tykes, a non-profit corporation that has contributed more than $400,000 to child-serving organizations in southeast Michigan including the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Kids Kicking Cancer and the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan.

The Honorable Kurtis T. Wilder has served as a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals since 2004 and previously was a circuit court judge for Washtenaw County. Judge Wilder was a litigation attorney for Butzel Long, P.C. and Foster, Swift, Collins & Smith, P.C. earlier in his career. He is a past president of the Michigan Judges Association.

Michael Klein, M.D. holds the Arvin I. Philippart, M.D. Endowed Chair in Pediatric Research at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. In addition, he is an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering at Wayne State University. Dr. Klein was a professor of surgery and vice chair of the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Wayne State University School of Medicine from 1997 until 2009. He served as surgeon-in-chief at Children’s Hospital of Michigan during the same time period.

Seetha Shankaran, M.D. is a professor of pediatrics and director of the division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. In addition, she is director of Regional Neonatal Programs for the Detroit Medical Center and serves as a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Medicine. She has received multiple research grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health.