In situations of crisis, some people are pensive and others, persistent. Megan Mahoney’s father was, decidedly, the latter. Mahoney, OEM Business Development Manager, Performance Materials, remembers her father – who was stricken with acute myeloid leukemia – repeatedly telling his doctors one thing: “Keep fighting.” Even after his doctors said that there was nothing more to be done, her father insisted, “There is: keep fighting.” Denise Hartmann, Vice President – Business Management, recalls the night before her father passed away from prostate cancer. “I was sitting by his bed and holding his hand and said I’d do whatever I could to fight this disease. He tapped my hand and said, ‘I know you will kiddo, I know you will.’” The two friends, both based in Michigan, were kindred in trauma after losing their fathers. Later, they would push each other on through triumph. Mahoney and Hartmann got involved with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program. Team in Training’s goal is to raise funds and awareness for cancer research and treatment. Participants sign up for an athletic event and agree to raise a certain amount of money for the organization. For people who have lost loved ones to cancer, it enables them to put their grief into action. Hartmann said it allowed her to keep her promise to her father. And, as Mahoney puts it, “If I couldn’t fix him, I could fix something."

Both women were runners, with earlier experience training on behalf of cancer-related and other charities. But neither expected to one day stand on the summit of one of the world’s most challenging mountains together. “It’s been 14 years and I’m well into six figures of funds raised, but didn’t know I’d be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro!” Hartmann exclaimed. Mahoney surprised herself just as much: “What I’d committed to probably didn’t hit me until I set up my fundraising page. I thought, ‘What did I sign up to do? And now everyone knows I signed up to do it!’”