2021 McCormick Lecture Series:
Finding God in the Midst of a Pandemic
Click below to watch video from this year’s speaker, Admiral Brett Giroir
2021 McCormick Lecture Series:
The McCormick Distinguished Speaker Forum
The James C. and Barbara McCormick Distinguished Speaker Forum was established in 1986 and endowed by the McCormick family prior to “Mac’s” passing in 1995. Following Mac’s death, his family dedicated the lecture series to the memory of Jim McCormick. Barbara has continued the legacy of this lecture series, which was designed to bring outstanding lay speakers to educate and inspire members and friends at Lovers Lane UMC and in the greater Dallas community. Over the course of the years the series has hosted such outstanding speakers as Jeannette Clift George, Ken Sande, founder of The Peacemaker Ministry, Ron Hall and Denver Moore, authors of Same Kind of Different as Me, and in 2010, William Paul Young, author of The Shack. Jim McCormick was an amazing man that never let illness or physical limitations stand in the way of fulfilling God’s plan for his life. Barbara loves the church and the Foundation and wants both to grow and prosper in the future.
ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR
Brett P. Giroir is an American pediatrician and a former four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. He previously served as the 16th Assistant Secretary for Health during the Trump administration from February 15, 2018 to January 19, 2021. He concurrently served as the secretary’s principal public health and science adviser, the senior adviser for the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as well as the senior adviser to the secretary for Opioid Policy. From 2020 to 2021, he served additionally as the director of the U.S. coronavirus diagnostic testing, and as the U.S. representative on the World Health Organization Executive Board. As the COVID-19 testing czar, he was part of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Brett served as the Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs in November and December 2019, while Stephen Hahn’s nomination was pending in the Senate.
From 2004 to 2008, Giroir served as the deputy director, and then a director, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Defense Science Office, vice chancellor for the Texas A&M University System from 2008 to 2013, and as the chief executive officer of the Texas A&M Health Science Center from 2013 to 2015.
Starting in 2016 Brett served as president and CEO of ViraCyte, LLC, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing cellular immunotherapies for severe infections. He also served as a senior fellow at the Texas Medical Center Health Policy Institute and strategic advisor for the Texas Medical Center Innovation Institute. He was a member of the Texas Task Force for Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response, and adjunct professor of pediatrics at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
