Remembrance

Printed In Positive Populations January 2001

Thomas G. Martin, founder and president of Martin Medical Services (MMS) and publisher of Positive Populations, passed away on November 13, 2000 after a long battle with AIDS. He was 34.

Thom, a native of Denver, Colorado and a long-time AIDS advocate, began working in the HIV/AIDS field in 1987 as the AIDS Education and Outreach Coordinator for the Southern Colorado AIDS Project in Colorado Springs. In that capacity, he designed and presented AIDS-101 Curricula for health education programs in several Colorado school districts. In 1990, Thom moved to the Washington, DC area and was named Special Projects Coordinator for RESCON Inc, a pharmaceutical research and consulting firm based in McClean, Virginia.

Thom developed, designed and implemented several educational forums on behalf of some of the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies while at RESCON, including Hoffmann-La Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Company and Glaxo-Wellcome, among others. He also was instrumental in planning and organizing the very first National AIDS Drug Assistance (ADAP) Educational Forum in Washington, D.C., which is now recognized as the nation's premier ADAP event. That forum provides invaluable programmatic, technical, clinical and legislative expertise to ADAP administrators and others interested in providing a high level of care for people with HIV and AIDS. Thom played a key role in elevating the forum to national prominence and for turning the meeting into an annual event.

Thom devoted his life's work to ensuring that people with HIV and AIDS had access to medical care and the latest drug therapies. He served as a technical consultant to the Ryan White Title II Community AIDS National Network (T * 11 CANN) and was a planning council member on the Ryan White Title I EMA for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. He also worked closely with the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, serving as an advisor on various projects, including efforts to develop a community-based ADAP program.

In 1997, Thom launched Martin Medical Services (MMS), using his expertise and skills to form a pharmaceutical research and marketing firm that has been able to harness and utilize the resources and knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry to benefit both industry and patients alike. During the past three years, MMS has planned and conducted several industry-sponsored HIV/AIDS educational forums throughout the United States, meetings that have enhanced the programmatic capabilities of dozens of AIDS-related programs in the public and private sectors, and which have, in turn, improved patient access to care and treatment.

Like many others in the HIV/AIDS world, Thom became increasingly concerned about the growing numbers of offenders and ex-offenders with HIV/AIDS and other chronic conditions in our nation's prisons and jails during the 1990s. He subsequently started pushing the concept of a national correctional newsletter that would address the disproportionately high rates of HIV/AIDS and other illnesses behind bars, efforts that led to the creation of Positive Populations.

In a sense, Positive Populations serves as a testimony to Thom's unrelenting efforts, a fitting tribute to a man who spent most of his life working to improve the lives of others. As the publisher of Positive Populations, Thom edited and oversaw the production of the newsletter. But he did much more than that. He provided guidance, direction and foresight to a publication that has always been willing to address many of the fundamental challenges and concerns of providing care to inmates with HIV disease and other maladies in correctional settings. Thom looked at the newsletter as a valuable resource, a tool that would ultimately improve the plight of disadvantaged and disenfranchised population groups which he cared deeply about.

As we say goodbye to Thom Martin, we applaud his good works and take solace in the fact that his accomplishments will always live on.