- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

Keep getting better.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

South Jersey Industries.

The parent company of South Jersey Gas, and Elizabethtown gas.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

And by The North Ward Center.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Media.

A print and digital business news network.

And by Insider NJ.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hey, everyone, Steve Adubato here.

Welcome to a very special interview that you're about to see with my colleague, Jacqui Tricarico, who is our Senior Correspondent.

Jacqui, you attended the June 7th 5K Celebration of Life, if you will, for the New Jersey Sharing Network.

Tell folks what they're about to see.

- Well, New Jersey Sharing Network is an organ and tissue procurement organization here in New Jersey, and the event was all about honoring those that we have lost that were organ and tissue donors, remembering their lives, and also bringing awareness to those who are still waiting for organ and tissue donations.

So many people, 4,000 here in New Jersey, are on the waiting list for a lifesaving organ.

So this event was just so impactful in its 16th year.

16 years, it's been going on.

It's a huge event in New Providence, New Jersey, and I was lucky enough to be there.

Again, I've been doing this over a decade, and I get to go there every year to share their wonderful, impactful, important stories.

Yeah, it's 4,000 in New Jersey waiting, 100,000-plus in the United States.

Important, compelling, powerful interviews.

Here's one of Jacqui's right here.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico, on location at the New Jersey Sharing Network 5K event here in New Providence, New Jersey.

So excited now to be joined by Joe Yaccarino, the President and CEO of MTF Biologics.

Great to have you with us, Joe.

- It's a pleasure, pleasure.

- So, for those who don't know, describe what MTF Biologics is.

- MTF is one of the largest tissue banks in the world.

We take donated gifts, gifts of tissue, and we transform those into transplants that are used throughout the world.

52 countries, we distribute to 52 countries.

And those tissues are used in surgery from any kinds of surgery.

There's sports medicine surgeries, there's cancer surgeries for young children with sarcomas, there's breast reconstruction after mastectomy.

And those are a way to bridge what we're doing here today, which is talking about donation, and making that into transplantation.

- 'Cause so often, part of this experience here is, yes, talking about organ donation but also tissue donations.

A lot of times, people hear more about organ donation because it is, yes, my friend, my neighbor actually is getting a new kidney in a couple weeks.

You know, you hear so much more about that, but the tissue donation is such a unique and important part of the equation here when we're talking about donation overall.

2 1/2 million people, is that right, every year?

- It's actually more than that.

- More than that, okay.

- Yes, and, so, each tissue donor can help over a hundred folks.

So when you're talking about organs, obviously, they're lifesaving, but we have lifesaving grafts as well for devastating burns, again, I mentioned cancers and amputations, so it really is a big part of what we do in the donation process.

- Spreading the awareness too because so many people that have gotten a knee replacement or these surgeries don't know that the tissue was donor tissue, correct?

How are you making sure that folks know about this too and spreading that message?

- It's about this, it's about talking about what it is that tissue means, and it's talking to our clinicians and our nurses and the folks that are in the OR and asking the question, "Did I get, I heard I might need an allograft.

Did I get," an allograft is a tissue that comes from another human.

So, when those questions are asked, and there's more awareness of tissue and how it helps and saves lives, that's critically important to us.

- Let's take it back a little bit because you've been working with the organization for 30 years now?

- Coming on 30 years.

- Coming on 30 years, I mean, that's incredible.

Talk about the journey with MTF Biologics because you started really on the engineer side and creating a lot of this technology that's just so crucial to making these types of transplantations work.

- So, I'm an engineer by training.

I was the first process engineer, and they asked me, "We need to make some spinal grafts."

And I said, "I think I can do that, I'm a reasonably intelligent engineer."

- "Give me a try."

(laughs) - And they said, "We wanna make it out of human tissue."

And I was like, "Wow, that's really happening," so that was the start, and we're a very innovative organization.

We have lots of R&D.

We have upwards of 50 to 60 R&D folks.

So we're constantly looking at advancing science, using this beautiful gift, this gift of donating in a tragic time, the most tragic time of anyone's life and saying, "How can we help others with that?"

And that's what I did, I was involved in lots of new tissue forms and new innovations and gained in responsibility, and eight years ago, they decided to make me the CEO.

It's an unbelievable honor, an amazing, amazing opportunity to lead.

We have 1,400 folks at MTF.

- Wow- And I wanna talk about when life and career very uniquely overlap for you.

- Yes.

- Talk about in 2022 when you found yourself needing tissue donation for a surgery.

- So, I started feeling tingling in my hands and my extremities, and I said, "What's going on?"

I started getting some neck pain.

I went to the doctor, got some MRIs, and they said, "You have spinal stenosis, you have some arthritis in your spine, and let's go on PT and see if it gets any better."

PT didn't help me at all.

I was getting impingement right on my spinal cord from my, and my surgeon said, "PT is not gonna help, you need an operation."

And I said, "Well, I know a lot about the spine, and I know about how those operations work, and are we gonna use MTF tissue?"

And he said, "Absolutely, we're gonna use MTF tissue."

So I have MTF tissue in my neck as we speak, and it came from a gift of donation.

A donor and their family decided to donate to me, and the rest is history.

The surgery was very successful.

I'm able to do all the things that I wanted to do and could do, and I'm so grateful.

The donor was from Nebraska.

I got a chance to fly out to Nebraska, talk to the team that was involved in that whole process.

I wrote a letter to the family.

That's what we really encourage folks to do is- - That's linking lives, it's something specific that MTF does, right?

- Exactly, with every tissue form, we create an opportunity to write a letter to the family.

It's a difficult letter to write.

You don't really know what to say.

They're in a grieving time, and I had multiple iterations of that letter and finally came up with one that I was happy with, and it really showed the most important word is gratitude, gratitude for what they did, what the donor meant to not just me but to the world of tissue donation and how we're healing and saving lives, and it's an amazing experience to be here for this long and know that now it's part of me.

It really helps me lead better, it helps me keep that passion going to lead the organization.

- And improving your quality of life.

- Back to business.

You're gonna see me, if you watch, I'm gonna be jumping off of that- - Well, that's what I said we have to talk about last before I let you go.

I wanna talk about The Bone Tones.

- Yes, yes.

- Tell us about The Bone Tones 'cause I love this concept.

- The Bone Tones started 28 years ago.

So we were only 70 people in the organization.

There was a talent show, there was a tap dancer and a magician, and I said, "I play the piano, and I sing."

And we had a gent who plays the bass.

And I said, "Let's play a couple tunes, a couple jazz tunes, and we need a name."

I said, "Well, let's come up with The Bone Tones."

Since then, we've been a duo, a trio, a quintet playing jazz.

We're playing today.

Now we're a pop band, a cover band, and we just love what we do.

We have an opportunity.

We just played for our company picnic.

So we played for first shift, and then we came back at 10 p.m.

and played for third shift.

Wherever we can play but also talk about who we are and- - Opens up the conversation.

- Exactly, exactly.

And I'll get on the microphone and say, "Do you know who The Bone Tones really are?"

And we talk about MTF, we talk about New Jersey Sharing Network, we talk about tissue donation and how it is the right thing to do.

It saves and heals lives, and please, please check that box, please be a donor and talk to your family about it.

- I love that, and we'll be listening to you later out there.

(laughs) - Please do.

- (laughs) We can't wait.

Thank you so much, Joe, for sharing your story- - My pleasure, thank you- - And telling us more about MTF Biologics, such an important organization doing incredible things every day, so thank you so much, Joe.

- Thank you for having me.

- We'll be right back after this.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Hey, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We're now joined by Steve Evert who is director of Marine Field Station at our higher ed partners at Stockton University.

Steve, great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

Excited to talk about this project.

- What is the project?

We'll drive everyone to the website at the university, but what is the project?

- So the project is the LEO-15 testbed research and education facility.

It's essentially revitalization and modernization of an ocean testbed platform area that Rutgers started in the '90s and was active into the 2000s.

It's being revitalized through funding through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Rutgers and Stockton are educational partners on the program.

And we have a technical partner, Ocean Power Technologies, that has installed a buoy at the site.

So it'll be a long-term observatory of ocean conditions off of Tuckerton, New Jersey.

- Devil's advocate question.

For those of us who have no idea what the heck you just said, but we care about the ocean.

- Sure - Why to the average person?

- Yep.

- Or below average in my case.

Why is this so important, Steve?

- The connection, the location of this facility, the connection between the near coastal environment, what you see when you walk up to the beach and the ocean and the conditions that you see there and our estuaries, our back bays, right?

That connection between those two systems is critical for larval transport of fin fishes that are our tourists want to catch and recreational commercial fisheries, water quality, public health related to water quality, sediment transport.

Where does your sand go when it's put up on the beach?

How does it get on the beach or into the bays?

How does it affect fisheries?

So that's a really important piece.

Another really important piece of this project is it's tied to education.

And our Stockton and Rutgers ability to roll this program into their teaching and research is going to give our students, undergrads, grads, PhD candidates, all, and other stakeholders throughout New Jersey an opportunity to have workforce development, learn skills that are important for the blue economy they’re are important for our coastal resilience.

- You mentioned quote unquote, the blue economy.

- Yep.

- Translate that, Steve.

- I'm sorry?

- Translate that.

- Translate that.

So- If someone says the green economy.

- Sure.

- They think they think they know what that means.

- Right.

- I'm not actually sure what the blue economy means.

- Everything that revolves around our coastal zone, right?

Our ability to stay here with, you know, rising sea levels, increases in nuisance flooding different issues that we experience on the barrier island.

Our ability to possibly harvest energy from the ocean, right, in different ways.

Our ability to support our commercial and recreational fisheries have a healthy ecosystem for our coastal tourism.

All of those pieces require data collection, data analysis, and translation of that science to stakeholders.

- Hey Steve, I know why I'm fascinated.

My why, if you will.

I've got, you know, Simon Sinek's book.

"Start With Why," right?

My why.

I mean, I'm fascinated by media.

I'm fascinated, it doesn't matter why, why my is.

My why is media.

But I am curious as to why, what your why is about ocean research.

What's your why?

- What's my why about ocean research?

Why is it important to collect this data?

Why is it important to me?

Just to have an understanding.

So some ability to predict and to know how to adapt so that we can stay in this coastal zone so that we can make sure we keep those healthy ecosystems.

What keeps it going, and those are the reasons it's important to me.

- You know, Stockton working together with Rutgers.

- Yep - Together with the New Jersey EDA, and then also a private business as well.

In a very challenging, and we talked to President Joe, check out our website, SteveAdubato.org, and our interview with President Joe Bertolino, president at Stockton.

And we talked about the challenges in higher ed and the need to pivot, adapt, and partner sometimes.

Is a partnership like this potentially a role model for other universities who are always thinking about their competing?

And you are on some level.

But when you need to collaborate, you can do things that are almost impossible to do alone.

Talk about that, Steve.

- So yeah, there's competition between our schools, right?

- Of course there is.

- Of course.

There's a limited number of students.

We all know that now.

We need our students, but collaboration is really important.

Rutgers and Stockton collaboration in particular, but there's other schools that both of us collaborate with.

But the Rutgers-Stockton connection is strong.

It's been there.

We both have field stations in the Mullica River Great Bay Estuary.

Stockton is a great feeder program of our undergraduate students to Rutgers graduate program, but we can do more together, right?

We can lean on each other's expertise.

We have certain areas of marine technology that Rutgers does not, and vice versa.

They do a lot of glider and autonomous work.

We do a lot of shipboard sea floor mapping type of work.

Being able to combine those technologies and also expose students from each program to the other is really just, you know, a way to spread out our resources to the benefit of students who are ultimately our workforce coming up.

- An important initiative at Stockton, together with Rutgers-Stockton, one of our longtime higher ed partners, Steve Evert, Director of Marine Field Station at Stockton University.

To the team down at South Jersey and Stockton University, we want to thank all of you and wish you all the best.

Thank you, Steve.

- Thank you, Steve, for having me.

- You got it, stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Upbeat Music - Hi, I’m Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for One on One, and I’m here at the New Jersey Sharing Network’s 5K celebration of life here in New Providence, New Jersey, talking to all types of different people who have been impacted by organ donation and tissue donation, and joining me now is Alisha Langford, who is the sister of Nick and the team "Liver Up for Nick" here today being represented at the 5K.

It's so great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Well, first, tell us about your brother, Nick.

- My brother was someone who loved to live life.

He was unapologetically himself all the time.

He loved the summer.

He loved disappearing on his boat, in his jet skis.

And he had countless friends.

He would talk to anyone and everyone.

My joke is like he would talk to dust.

So like his reach was very broad and like he was someone who, the first time you met him you felt like you knew him your whole life.

Like he left nothing unsaid.

He was an amazing, amazing human that would do anything for anyone, which is how we found ourself here.

- Yeah, and you also, you're describing Nick, but it sounds like you're talking about yourself a little bit too, because you did such an amazing thing when organ donation kind of first came into your family's life.

You were an organ donor for your brother.

Talk about that experience.

- So my brother was diagnosed when he was very young.

He was about 12 years old when we found out that he had PSC, which is a rare liver disease.

And we knew at that moment that he would need a transplant inevitably.

And in 2016, he was officially listed.

And when he was listed, then I began the testing process for the living donorship.

- [Jacqui] How old were you?

- [Alisha] I was at that point 26 years old.

And he was 20.

We're four and a half years apart, so he was 21.

- [Jacqui] Was that always something that was in the back of your mind?

- [Alisha] It was never a question for me.

Like as soon as we found out that he would need it, like that was always my intention.

When he was first diagnosed, he was told that he wouldn't be a candidate for a living donor because they only take a segment of your organ and transplant it, and they felt that he would need the whole, not a partial.

But as we went to different doctors as he aged, that transitioned to where he was eligible for a partial and that's where I came into play.

So I don't even think like he was formally listed and I was already calling the transplant center like, when do I come in?

- Because you need to go through testing to see if you're a match.

So talk about that.

And also you touched upon it, but the liver is a unique organ in that you can take part of your liver and donate it being a living donor and it will regenerate.

Regenerate.

Talk about that because a lot of people don't know that, I think.

- It's one of the only organs in your body that regenerates.

Obviously your skin does also.

They can take up to 60% of your organ, which is what they took from me.

They took my right lobe.

So my joke was like he was all right and I was all left.

So they left me with 40 and they've made so many advancements now with that surgery.

My understanding is that now they can even do it laparoscopically, whereas that was not the case in 2017 when we did it.

It's the best thing that I've ever done.

It's I think the proudest thing I've ever done.

Like on the way to the hospital that morning because you have to check in and they sit you side by side and you're just kind of like waiting for the surgeons to come in.

And he said, "This is my new birthday."

And then when he woke up, he told me that I was his hero and that he loved me.

And I don't feel like a hero.

It's just like, if you know that you have a key to someone's happiness, tomorrow's, hugs, like sunny days, I can't fathom not giving that to someone.

And like allowing them the opportunity that you have.

And for me, that's what it was about more than anything.

And now like I see posters of like kidney needed and my husband's like, "Absolutely not."

- Who else can I give.

Oh yeah.

- Honestly is one of the most rewarding experiences I think of my lifetime.

- And you gave your brother this incredible gift.

And he was able to live so many beautiful years with you and your family.

But then tragedy hit.

And your brother passed away, not from the liver disease, right?

- Totally separate.

He had a brain aneurysm.

He was 29 years old.

No one had more medical workup than Nick.

So it really came as a shock.

And believe it or not, my brother was not a registered organ donor.

Because of all of his illnesses, he believed - - He thought maybe he wasn't the right candidate.

- Yeah, he believed that he wouldn't be able to.

And him and I had had a lot of conversations.

We were obviously very close and we always knew that like if we ever had to make the decision that that was the decision to be made, that if something could be given, then that's what we would want to do.

So when they shared the news with my family and I that he was brain dead and that there was no recovery possible, that was my first question was, can we donate his organs?

- What was he able to donate?

- He was able to donate his heart.

And we got the letter three weeks later that it went to a 65-year-old man that I may never know.

And it offers me such a sense of peace in my brother's passing because like his heart is still beating somewhere.

Like right now as I'm sitting here, that person is getting to love their family the way that Nick did.

- What does that feel like for you to know that he's living on in that way?

- I think it offers me a sense of, like I said, peace, but it also offers me a sense of purpose.

Like we think that death is a closure of a chapter, but for Nick and for us, it's the opening of a chapter that I may never get to read.

And sometimes that's okay.

But just knowing that there's someone out there that has a piece of him is incredible for me.

And they are so lucky.

Not just because he's mine.

But because there's families like me and us every day that make that choice, that say to themselves, "This is the darkest day of my life."

But it could be somebody's best.

And that gift is the largest you could ever give to anybody.

- And it's such an emotional rollercoaster on so many different levels.

Talk about your team here today.

"Liver Up for Nick."

You said over 45 people.

Friends and family.

Talk about the people that have joined you on this journey here today at this beautiful celebration of life.

- [Alisha] So we really look forward to it every year.

Everyone's like, "What's the T-shirt going to be?"

And I'm like, "I like last year's T-shirt, so we're going to keep it."

- This one' great too.

- Yeah, its his little character on his jet ski.

- He's on his jet ski, I love that.

- Where I want to think he is right now.

Yeah, we have 45 people.

It's our yearly thing.

It's celebrating him, but it's also like paying it forward through the funds that we raise, the awareness that we raise.

It allows people to be more open to organ donation and know what the Sharing Network offers and understand like they are a community.

It's not just a nonprofit.

Like these are people, these people care.

They are an extension of your family.

- They really are.

And just even the people that you meet along the way that other people are sharing in similar experiences all gathering here today.

And you had an opportunity or you're having an opportunity here today to walk through the building.

And the building has a very unique parts of it that are honoring those donors all the time of the landscape of life wall that you're going to be walking by.

How important was it for you today to be a part of what's happening inside the building too?

- Me personally, I've never formally been in the building.

I've only been in here once and it was in and out.

I haven't been able to like see my brother's name on the wall, but to know that like people walk past it every day and like sit next to it and eat lunch and like ponder.

And he's one of many people that have paid it forward, which is beautiful.

And to know that like his name exists inside of these walls is also a really beautiful thing.

I'm excited to see the building and see like all of the intricacies of it's not just about names, but it's about experiences.

It's about like their faces and their photographs and their accomplishments and all of the things that they were able to do within their lifetimes.

- Yeah, and you being able to sit here and honor your brother with us, we appreciate that so much.

And letting everybody know just the important things that you as a living donor did for your brother saving his life and then how he paid it forward to so many others.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Thank you, Alisha, we appreciate it.

- It's been an absolute pleasure.

- Thank you.

- Thank you to our Senior Correspondent, Jacqui Tricarico.

And for Jacqui and our entire team here at "One-on-One," we thank you so much for watching.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program.

South Jersey Industries.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

And by The North Ward Center.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Media.

And by Insider NJ.

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Empower yourself with the vaccination information you need to make the best decisions for your child.

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Learn more about fact-based information at hackensackmeridianhealth.org/ vaccine-facts and always talk to your child's pediatrician.