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On behalf of Dr. Jeane Hester, I would like to thank everyone in the American Apheresis Society and World Apheresis Society involved with the nomination and presentation of this award. She is truly honored by the recognition of her peers and wishes that she could be here to thank each and every one in person. The reason I am standing here goes back 43 years to July of 1971 when a new ‘crop’ of oncology fellows came to MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Department of Developmental Therapeutics. The chairmen of the department were Emil Frei and Emil J Frereich, with Ken McCredie as the head of the then fledgling apheresis center and I was the tech working in Ken’s research lab. Back then it was somewhat rare to have a female physician in the mix, so word traveled quickly about the tall attractive ‘fellow’ who was winning everyone over with her personality, commitment to her profession and, above all, dedication to her patients. As a fellow, part of the responsibility was to choose a research project and work in the lab in their free time. Several months later this here-to-for phantom Dr. Hester appeared in my lab to discuss where she could work on her project regarding Leukoagglutins in Transfusion. So we began sharing the lab, I used it during the day and she used it at night and occasionally we shared! To paraphrase the last line from Casablanca as Bogart and Claude Rains walk into the night: “This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship”. From that time forward, we worked together on many projects until her retirement from MD Anderson in 1995. The most notable achievement was the development of the first blood cell separators to use disposable channels and all the associated outcomes – the calcium citrate binding incorporated into the software, calcium replacement therapy used during collection, bag parameters for the storage and cryopreservation of cells and optimization of the software for the various procedures. The initial development was accomplished through collaboration with the Biomedical Division of IBM and moving forward she collaborated with GAMBRO COBE and until her 2nd retirement this year with TerumoBCT. The very first 2997 manufactured was called the ‘Genie’ and was donated to Dr. Hester’s Apheresis Unit. It was marketed as the IBM 2997, followed by the next generation – the COBE Spectra. Fast forward 30 years and today, this same blood cell separator is the work horse of apheresis, performing stem cell collections, plasma depletions, plateletpheresis, WBC reductions, and RBC depletions. Like all of us, the Spectra will be retired to make room for a newer model, but the scientific principals established during the development of the continuous flow separators (2990 – 2997 – Spectra) serve as the foundation for the future in apheresis. On a personal note, this award has been a time-traveling experience for Jeane and me. We are back 30+ years where she is drafting the speech and I am preparing the slides of our data. Only back then, it was truly hand-produced 35 mm slides and at least now I have the modern technology of PowerPoint. However, several of the slides and photos presented are digitized from the original 35 mm slide. The speech I will be giving has been written by Dr. Hester as if she were here presenting it herself. Many of you who know her will be able to pick up on several of the ‘mantras’ that she often presented and challenged at meetings, such as. . .‘Showme the data’. She is fiercely protective and loving, steadfast when right and can be stubbornly tenacious and I am proud to call her mentor and friend. – April G. Durett, MSc, Manager, Flow Cytometry Facility, Center for Cell & Gene Therapy I will now channel Dr. Hester in Houston, TX, and present her talk. International Forum: from the WAA Congress in San Francisco, 2014. * Corresponding author. Canadian Apheresis Group. E-mail address: cag@cagcanada.ca (G. Rock).