In 1984, at the age of 29, Amy Langer got a wake-up call. As she sat in the waiting room of her doctor's office, absorbed in a draft of a financial report, a technician appeared in the doorway. "You," she said, pointing at Langer with a grave expression and motioning her into a room to take more images as part of her first mammogram.
What followed was a frustrating and trying time: months of uncertainty about an unusual fibrous mass, the surprising diagnosis of breast cancer, a lumpectomy, radiation therapy, and the soul-searching that often accompanies a life-threatening experience. The ordeal inspired Langer to make a pact with a higher power: "If You get me through this, I will give something back."
Today, as executive director of the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations, headquartered in New York City, Langer has made good on her promise. She is a highly respected spokesperson for patient needs and rights, advises medical professional organizations as well as corporate and government cancer programs, gives presentations on cancer survivorship topics at national conferences, and is frequently asked to testify before Congress on issues related to cancer research and treatment.
Under her leadership, NABCO has become the country's leading nonprofit resource for breast cancer information and education. A powerful force in patient advocacy, it is often the breast cancer community's first stop for resources and updates, and it has helped connect thousands of medically underserved women with screening and care. Langer has worked tirelessly to offer women with breast cancer what she could not find-accurate information, encouragement, and understanding.
At the time of her diagnosis, Langer was a senior vice president at Shearson Lehman Brothers, working ninety-hour weeks in corporate finance. Also interested in human resource management, she took on additional responsibilities such as making staff assignments and overseeing the employee evaluation process. "I realized that managers can use techniques and frameworks to handle delicate interpersonal issues," remarks Langer, who participated in designing and implementing a performance review and feedback system still used by the firm many years later.
Langer's management skills have served breast cancer patients well around the globe. Fully recovered, in 1987 she began to "tithe," as she describes it, 10 percent of her time to the cancer cause. After reading about the newly established NABCO in a magazine, she called the organization to ask if she could help. "They said they were still somewhat overwhelmed and didn't know how they could use me," she relates. "I arrived at the office the next day to see for myself what I might do."
An initial half-day per week commitment as a volunteer soon turned into a full-time position as she put her business expertise to work. "I saw so much potential there," says Langer, who has grown the NABCO budget from $17,000 that first year to its current $7 million through grants and donations. Her innovative approach, which has made her a sought-after speaker on social marketing and nonprofit management issues, has led to educational partnerships with numerous businesses, including Avon Products, Sears, and the Women's National Basketball Association. She was named executive director of NABCO in 1990.
Langer's can-do attitude was tested again in 1996 when she and her family were involved in a tragic automobile accident. Stopped along a quiet roadside in upstate New York, she was struck while leaning over the trunk of her car by a driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. She sustained severe leg injuries from the high-speed impact. Her husband and their young son, miraculously, escaped virtually unharmed.
Although still confined to a wheelchair, Langer hopes that an ongoing rehabilitation effort and prosthetic legs will permit her to walk again. "After I had a fax machine installed in my hospital room, my nurses called me 'The Executive,'" Langer recalls. "One gave me some memorable advice: 'You can go around in your wheelchair, full of rage,' she said, 'or you can use it as a chance to educate.'" This perspective has helped Langer become skilled at turning incidents of discrimination and ignorance regarding physical handicaps into learning opportunities. "I try to show people that sitting in a wheelchair has little effect on my ability to lead my life or do my job," she says.
Born in New York City, Langer spent her early years in central Florida, where her father managed a citrus business. At twelve her parents divorced, and she returned to Manhattan with her mother. A self-described bookworm, she graduated from high school in just three years, spent a year at Smith, and then transferred to the first matriculating coed class at Yale College, where she was one of two female economics majors out of eight hundred students in the Class of 1975. As one of fewer than a hundred women in her class at Harvard Business School, Langer also helped break new ground at Soldiers Field. Interested in joining a smaller investment bank, she took a summer position with Kuhn Loeb & Co., and after earning her MBA, she joined the firm, which soon merged with Lehman Brothers.
Langer's work on Wall Street, she says, prepared her well for what she does today. "It's important for nonprofits to assume more business-like behavior," she notes. "While the sector is becoming more sophisticated, it is still underperforming in terms of its capacity for consumer impact, social change, and policy influence."
Amy Langer's enthusiasm for her work is matched only by her compassion for those she represents. "Breast cancer is a topic that creates tremendous fear and panic, and a disease that claims far too many lives," she observes. "But a lot can be done to equip and empower women and their families. We have come a long way, and I am confident we can go a lot further."
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