Our Team: The Staff

Ohio End of Life Options was founded by Lisa Vigil Schattinger in 2016. Soon after, she met Molly McMahon Graziano at a speaking event. Since then, the mission has been moving our team forward. As a result of their committed work and shared passion for this issue, many more supporters and volunteers rallied together, including the Board of Directors listed below, and the members of the Policy Advisory Group.

Our team includes many volunteers, and we are always welcoming more! If you want to help in our mission, please Contact Us.

Our Team: The Board of Directors:

  • Muffy Kaesberg, Board Chairperson, retired owner of Organizing 4 U, LLC – Read about Muffy
  • Amy Foti, JD, Board Secretary, Community Volunteer – Read Amy’s story
  • Kim Barton, Board Treasurer, Community Volunteer
  • Alex Keller-Biehl, CPA, Community Volunteer – Read Alex’s story
  • Vikki Miller, Community Volunteer – Read Vikki’s story
  • Maryjo Prince-Paul, Ph.D. RN FPCN, formerly Associate Professor, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Palliative and End of Life Care
    – Read Maryjo’s statement
  • Ann Rowland, JD, retired Assistant U.S. Attorney – Read Ann’s story – Ann leads the Policy Advisory Group.
  • Doug Schattinger, MBA, President/CEO, Pioneer Manufacturing
  • Jeremy Shapiro, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist and adjunct faculty member of the Psychological Sciences Department of Case Western Reserve University
  • Wendy Shugarman, Community Volunteer
  • Julie Silver Manning, Owner, Julie’s Gift Closet, Community Volunteer – Read Julie’s story
  • Susan Spinell, Ex-Officio
  • Roger Peckinpaugh, JD, Ex-Officio

The Board of Directors of Ohio End of Life Options
Left to right: Wendy Shugarman, Vikki Miller, Jeremy Shapiro, Alex Keller-Biehl, Maryjo Prince-Paul,
Ann Rowland, Amy Foti, Kim Barton, Muffy Kaesberg, Doug Schattinger Not Pictured: Julie Silver Manning

Lisa Vigil Schattinger, MSN, RN, Volunteer Executive Director

Lisa founded Ohio End of Life Options in 2015. The year before, Lisa was with her stepfather, Dr. Jack Rowe, when he died after using Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. His death was peaceful and exactly as he had wished. A few months earlier, Jack had been diagnosed with cancer and told he had a few months to live. He enrolled in hospice and communicated openly and honestly with family and friends about his diagnosis. Before he died, he shared his thoughts on the Death with Dignity law in the Journal of the American Medical Association. His family was thankful to be able to surround him with love as he died at home. The experience was profound for Lisa and her family.

After returning home to Cleveland, Lisa shared her family’s experience locally and nationally. It has resonated with many. In 2016, she joined the board of Death with Dignity National Center.

Lisa grew up and went to college in Oregon. After graduating, she worked as a medical assistant in an internist’s office in Eugene. Her mother Jan Rowe was a nurse and they talked about medical issues a lot. They discussed physician-assisted death before it was voted on in 1994. At the time, Lisa’s aunt was being treated for breast cancer, from which she died in 1995. Her aunt was under hospice care but was without the option of medical aid in dying.

Lisa had other experiences with death among friends and family. She found that the concept of quality of life, for those at the end of life, is intensely personal and important. She began working toward a law giving terminally ill Ohioans access to all of their end-of-life options.

 

Molly McMahon Graziano, MA, Director of Outreach

Molly brings over twenty-five years of nonprofit leadership and communications strategy experience to the medical aid-in-dying issue. In her personal and professional life, she has witnessed many end-of-life experiences and is dedicated to expanding options and improving care for patients.

Molly is a lateral thinker with extensive experience in program development and growth. She has presented regionally and nationally and was awarded the Health and Human Services Medal of Honor for her work with the Organ and Tissue Donation National Collaborative.

Her digital communications knowledge and skills at the state and national level make her a valuable asset in helping expand awareness and raise the voices of Ohioans in support of an assisted dying law.