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We are proud to announce that Kent Holloway, CEO of Lifeline of Ohio, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations at their annual meeting on June 29, 2021.

Kent’s legacy of commitment, leadership and advocacy for organ donation and transplantation span three decades and have made a transformational impact on the field of organ procurement on both a local and national level.

During his career, Kent has been fortunate to use his training in education, business and finance to contribute to the evolving field of organ procurement and transplantation in a variety of areas, from quality assurance and research to viable therapy and treatment for those in end-stage organ failure. Kent’s professional expertise is punctuated by his experience as both a transplant program administrator, an OPO executive and an industry leader the areas of data management and quality assurance.

Kent played an instrumental role in launching Indiana Donor Organ Procurement Organization (now Indiana Donor Network), where he served as vice president of finance and operations. In 2000, Kent joined Lifeline of Ohio as chief financial officer before taking on the position of CEO in 2003. Lifeline of Ohio is one of four organ procurement organizations in the state, serving 38 counties in Central and Southeastern Ohio and two counties in West Virginia.

Kent’s contributions to the field of organ procurement resonates in Ohio and throughout the country. Locally, Kent served as president of Donate Life Ohio, the state’s donation collaborative and was an active advocate in the state capital, providing frequent legislative testimony on behalf of the donation field. Kent served as a member, and eventually chair, of the advisory committee for the Ohio Department of Health’s Second Chance Trust Fund, designed to provide education and donation advocacy throughout the state. Through his work with Second Chance Trust Fund, Kent played a key role in establishing the Ohio Donor Registry in 2002, where today nearly 60 percent of Ohioans have registered their decision to be a donor.

Nationally, Kent has served on the boards for many organizations including the National Kidney Foundation of Indiana, Voices for Ohio’s Children, The Foundation for the Science of Human Donation, LifeNet Health, the National Kidney Registry, Community Blood Center/Community Tissue Services and multiple committees with United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). Kent co-authored the The Economics of Organ Donation and Transplantation chapter of “A Clinician’s Guide to Donation and Transplantation” for the North American Coordinator’s Organization (NATCO) and served as a content expert for the development of physician compliance education at the Healthcare Finance Managers’ Association.

For more than 20 years, Kent has been actively engaged with the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO), participating on numerous committees including Finance, Data and Information, Strategic Directions and Organs for Research Task Force. In 2009, Kent received the AOPO Achievement Award as the leader of the AOPO Data and Information Committee for his tireless efforts to ensure data accuracy and quality assurance among OPOs. He later served as president of AOPO from 2014-2015.

Since joining Lifeline of Ohio, Kent has been instrumental in the growth and expansion of the organization, which now employees 115 staff members and is home of the Lifeline of Ohio Donor Memorial, the only one of its kind in Ohio. Under Kent’s guidance, Lifeline of Ohio launched a Placenta Donation Program, facilitated the first DCD heart donation in the United States in 2019 and has been the highest scoring OPO in the country for organs recovered and transplanted during the past four years.

Kent’s focus on quality assurance and outcome-based leadership culminated in Lifeline of Ohio’s five-year journey of excellence through The Partnership for Excellence (TPE), with a focus on organizational learning, innovation, resource optimization, continuous improvement and results. In 2020, Lifeline of Ohio was awarded a Silver Award for Excellence representing Ohio’s highest honor for commitment to performance excellence through innovation, results and visionary leadership using the Baldrige Excellence Framework.

The AOPO Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes Kent’s dedication to the mission of organ, eye and tissue donation, his service to countless donor families and the recipients whose lives have been saved and healed.

Congratulations Kent!