AGING WITH DIGNITY - Key Persons


Dave Simison

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of Operations
Simison has served as Vice President of Operations since 2005 and manages the financial, information technology and sales order fulfillment activities.

E. Zimmermann Boulos - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Founding Director
  • Member of the Board
  • Vice - Chairman
  • President of Office Environments & Services
Boulos is the president of Office Environments & Services, Jacksonville, Florida, a company he has led for over 40 years, and also serves on the Board of Directors of American Forests.

Ed Towey

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of Communications
  • Dignity 's Vice President of Communications
Ed Towey is Aging with Dignity's Vice President of Communications. Since 2008, he has been responsible for communications, media relations and website management.

Guy Smith - Chairman, Founder

Job Titles:
  • Chairman
  • Founding Director
  • Member of the Board
Smith has had a distinguished corporate career overseeing long‑term care facilities in the United States and Canada and most recently was the cofounder of Harmony Living Centers, a family‑focused network of 19 assisted living facilities…

James C. Capretta

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Member of the Board
Capretta holds the Milton Friedman Chair and is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, as well as a senior adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center, both in Washington, D.C.

Jamie Towey

Job Titles:
  • Vice President of Advocacy
Jamie develops strategic partnerships and membership services to amplify AWD's voice on better end-of-life care, and against the threats of assisted suicide and artificial intelligence. He is a former consultant with a big-four accounting firm after four-and-a-half years at the FBI's counterterrorism division. He holds an MBA from Oxford University.

Jim Towey - CEO, Founder

Job Titles:
  • CEO
  • Founder
  • Member of the Board
Jim Towey was a trusted advisor and personal friend of Mother Teresa of Calcutta for 12 years and did the first reading at her Mass of Canonization in St. Peter's Square. He has been pro bono legal counsel to the Missionaries of Charity for 38 years. He previously headed the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under George W. Bush for four years and served on his senior staff. His career spans the presidency of two Catholic colleges for thirteen years, a seven-year stint as a US Senate staffer, and the leadership of Florida's 40,000-employee health and human services agency. In 1996, with Mother Teresa's encouragement, he founded the nonprofit advocacy organization Aging with Dignity and created the Five Wishes advance directive, which has sold over 40 million copies. He currently serves as the organization's CEO. Towey is the recipient of seven honorary doctorate degrees, including ones from Catholic University of America and Franciscan University. In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II awarded him a papal medal for distinguished service. He currently is a trustee of The Papal Foundation. Last year Towey authored, To Love and Be Loved: A Personal Portrait of Mother Teresa, published by Simon and Schuster, which is now available in five languages. He and his wife, Mary, are donating the book's royalties to charities affiliated with the saint's work. Towey met his wife in Mother Teresa's Washington, DC, AIDS home and married her in 1992. They have five children and three grandchildren and reside in Falls Church Virginia.

Joanne Eason

Job Titles:
  • Five Wishes President
  • President of Five Wishes
Eason is president of Five Wishes. Since 2014, she has led the marketing, sales and promotion efforts for Five Wishes and is the principal liaison with leading health care, hospice and human resource officers and those comprising the nationwide network of distributors.

John Scalia

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Member of the Board
  • General Counsel for Barton & Associates, Inc
Scalia serves as general counsel for Barton & Associates, Inc., a national health care staffing firm. He is based in its West Palm Beach, Florida, office.

Mary B. McElroy

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Member of the Board
  • Senior Vice President of Hospice Services With Community Hospice & Palliative Care
McElroy is the senior vice president of hospice services with Community Hospice & Palliative Care, Jacksonville, Florida, one of the nation's largest non-profit hospice providers, where she has served since 2009.

Patricia Russell - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Founding Director
  • Member of the Board
  • Secretary
Russell is certified in clinical pastoral care through Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, Illinois, and is involved in elder care and hospice advocacy in her home state and southwest Florida.

Paul Malley - President

Job Titles:
  • President
Malley is president of Aging with Dignity and directs its day-to-day activities and oversees its education, research and training programs. He has served Aging with Dignity since 1998.

Robert M. Brochin - Founder

Job Titles:
  • Founding Director
  • Member of the Board
  • Partner of the Miami
Brochin is a partner of the Miami, Florida, office of Morgan Lewis. He served as deputy general counsel to the governor of Florida and later as its inspector general.

Ron Retzke

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Member of the Board
  • President of Retzke & Associates, Inc
Retzke is president of Retzke & Associates, Inc. in Wisconsin and has served as a consultant to multiple health and long-term care providers and also to nonprofit organizations. He is also on the board of…

Tonja Myles

Job Titles:
  • Director
  • Member of the Board
  • Co - Founder and Executive Director of Set Free
Myles is the co-founder and executive director of Set Free addiction recovery services and the Set Free Indeed ministry in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.