The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Comes to McLean

It’s spreading across the nation: The ALS ice bucket challenge with everyone from Ethel Kennedy to Jimmy Fallon taking a bucket of ice water over the head for a good cause.

Today, the ALS ice bucket challenge came to McLean, where four senior executives with Booz Allen Hamilon raised funds and awareness about the disease.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is a disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Booz Allen Hamilton senior executives Bill Thoet, Paul Ingholt, Craig Starnes and Rob Silverman participated — suits and all — in the ice bucket challenge Wednesday and made a donation on behalf of the firm’s staff who have battled ALS and people like Pete Frates who are driving awareness through the challenge. Booz Allen has been supporting the ALS Association since 1999, when one of its employees was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Thoet, an executive vice president at Booz Allen, is chairman of the board of the ALS Association and a number of the firm’s leaders serve on the national and local chapter boards of the ALS Association.

Thoet wrote a blog post in May about new advances bringing hope to those who suffer from ALS: For paralyzed veterans and people with ALS, new advances in robotics technology and brain research bring hope

PHOTO, left to right: Bill Thoet, Paul Ingholt, Craig Starnes and Rob Silverman