Category: Our Leadership

Garet Hil is the Founder & CEO of the National Kidney Registry. Mr. Hil became involved in transplantation when his daughter was diagnosed with kidney failure at age 10. After he and his wife were both deemed incompatible, a difficult and extensive donor search finally resulted in a successful transplant for their daughter. That process …

Dr. Matthew Cooper is the NKR Surgical Director and Chair of the Surgical Committee. He is also the Chief, Division of Transplant Surgery at the Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital and a Professor of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Cooper is board certified in general surgery and accredited by the American Society of …

Michael Cecka, PhD, is the NKR Lab Director and Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Immunogenetics Center, Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. He is certified by the American Board for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics and an HLA Laboratory Director and holds licenses in California, Hawaii and …

Karen Miller is the Chair of the NKR Operations Committee. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. She started her career caring for kidney, kidney/pancreas and liver transplant recipients as well as kidney donors in the Inpatient Transplant Unit at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.

Amy Waterman, PhD, is the NKR Research Director and the Chair of the Research Committee. She is a national transplant innovator and the Deborah C. and Clifton B. Phillips Centennial Chair for Clinical Research in Transplant Medicine at the J.C. Walter Jr. Transplant Center at Houston Methodist Hospital. In addition to many national transplant leadership …

Michael Lollo serves as the Chief Strategy Officer for the National Kidney Registry and is responsible for industry-facing activities involving living donors, patients, mentors, coaches and clients. Mr. Lollo is a non-directed living kidney donor who previously served as president of the National Kidney Donation Organization (NKDO), the largest living donor organization in the world.

Kevin Nelson is the Chief Information Officer for the National Kidney Registry, responsible for systems design and development. He started supporting the National Kidney Registry in 2007 while working for a web development consulting firm. In 2015 he joined the National Kidney Registry full-time as a software architect and successfully converted the organization to the …

In his dual roles as Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Ryan Meehan is responsible for operations, cash flow management, finance, analysis and reporting. Prior to joining the NKR, Mr. Meehan was a Managing Partner of Aviano Capital, an acquisition fund, where he raised seed capital from Private Equity firms and secured $100 million …

Samantha Hil is the Director of Marketing and Microsite Product Manager for the National Kidney Registry. She is in charge of designing and managing all of the NKR’s websites and is the organization’s chief editor, responsible for writing and reviewing the company’s written material, both online and in print. Ms. Hil has designed numerous products …

Timothy Wan, Esq. is the Chief Executive Officer of the Wan Law Group specializing in serving as General Counsel to high potential organizations. The Wan Law Group focuses on creditor’s rights, collection law, entertainment law, music law, copyright, and intellectual property. Mr. Wan was admitted to the New York State Bar in January 2001, after …