T.O. engineer wins MDA award

Brian McGreevy of Thousand Oaks has been named the recipient of the Muscular Dystrophy Association's 2007 Robert Ross Personal Achievement Award for California and is a finalist for the national award.

McGreevy, 38, was selected for the honor because of his professional accomplishments and his dedication to helping others with disabilities overcome barriers.

After earning a bachelor's degree in industrial design from Purdue University, McGreevy and a fellow graduate launched and ran a design business in Chicago for several years.

A subsequent position as a technical recruiter led to an interest in database administration, and McGreevy now works as a database administrator with CORPTAX (formerly Deloitte & Touche Tax Technologies) in Woodland Hills.

McGreevy built a custom bed for himself and a power hoist system to help him get in and out of it.

"Bob Ross would surely be as pleased as I am to announce Brian McGreevy as California's Robert Ross MDA Personal Achievement Award recipient for 2007," said Gerald C. Weinberg, MDA president and CEO. "Brian is outstanding among the thousands of talented people with neuromuscular diseases nationwide who are using their abilities to make a positive impact in their communities."

McGreevy supports MDA and participates in many of its programs and fundraising events. He appeared on the local broadcast of the 2006 Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon and continues to serve as a spokesperson for the association.

In December 1985, McGreevy received a diagnosis of limbgirdle muscular dystrophy, a progressive neuromuscular disease. He walks with crutches and sometimes uses a manual wheelchair for safety or accessibility.

The 2008 Robert Ross MDA Personal Achievement Award national honoree will be announced on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon Labor Day weekend, Sept. 2 and 3, broadcast locally on KCAL Channel 9 in Los Angeles.

Initiated in 1992, the national awards program recognizes the accomplishments and community service of people with disabilities caused by any of the neuromuscular diseases in MDA's program.

This year the awards were renamed in honor of Robert Ross, MDA's longtime chief executive, who died in June 2006.

For more than four decades, Ross coordinated MDA activities. He created the Personal Achievement Award program.

MDA is a voluntary health agency working to defeat more than 40 neuromuscular diseases. MDA maintains a clinic for area adults and children affected by neuromuscular diseases at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara.