The twelve Directors of the Cryonics Institute Board are elected for three years in groups of four every September at the Annual General Meeting held at the Cryonics Institute facility. Only Cryonics Institute Voting Members can be Director candidates. The requirements for becoming a CI Voting Member can be found can be found in Section 3.01(B) of the CI By-Laws.

Here are the five candidates currently seeking four Directors' positions for 2009 (and one Director position vacated in 2008), listed in alphabetical order. The deadline for becoming a candidate in the 2009 CI Board of Directors' election is August 7, 2009, but potential candidates would be well-advised to announce their candidacy well before July if they wish to be listed LONG LIFE magazine.

Constance M. Ettinger, J.D. (Doctor of Jurisprudence), is a native of Michigan, and a resident of that state. She currently resides in Franklin, Michigan with her husband, David Ettinger, who is himself an attorney with a large Detroit law firm and the son of Robert Ettinger.

Connie and David met at the University of Michigan as law students, and Connie is a long-time legal professional as well, having received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. She has been a licensed attorney for 19 years, previously specializing in personnel and employment law.

An especially active member of the Cryonics Institute for several years, Connie assisted physically in a suspension in 1987, has often hosted meetings, and is currently serving as Contract Officer. (When members join or suspensions are performed, the Contract Officer signs on behalf of CI, verifies that the forms are properly executed, and also helps out members with individual problems or special circumstances.)

Connie is now acting Vice President of the Franklin Community Association. Her main hobby (and delight) is comedy, and she occasionally performs stand-up routines in various clubs throughout the Detroit area.

She says of herself, "Raised in the wilds of northern Michigan, Connie is adept at hunting and killing her own food. Such skills made it natural for her to become a disreputable attorney. Her favorite activities include thinking up new uses for the word "irregardless".

She can be contacted at cdettin@aol.com

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Pat Heller is a Certified Public Accountant, though for the most part he deals in Rare Coins and Precious Metals, and is the owner and chief executive officer of Liberty Coin Service, of Lansing, Michigan. He became Treasurer of CI in 1980, and has also served as Vice President of CI. He took office as Vice President in late 1995, following Andrea Foote, and stepped down in 2001, though he continues as Director and Treasurer. Apart from his financial, business, and managerial activities, Pat also has a literary gift and has written and published both fiction and poetry.

Pat has been happily married for the past eight years to his wife, Pam. They have a two-year-old adopted son, and are legal guardians for a fifteen-year-old girl. The Hellers live in Lansing, Michigan.

Pat can be contacted at path@libertycoinservice.com

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Joseph Kowalsky was born and raised in the Detroit area in an Orthodox Jewish home. Both his parents are teachers, a fact he feels encouraged his own lifelong love of learning.

He recalls that he first became aware of cryonics when a seventh grade science teacher brought some cryonics material to class. Joe was hooked: for the next fifteen years Joe kept abreast of the movement, eventually becoming an Associate member of the Immortalist Society. He still remembers attending meetings at Dave and Connie Ettinger's house and speaking to Bob Ettinger, a man he looked up to as a legend.

Following several moves between Akiva Hebrew Day School and public school, Joe graduated and went to Wayne State University on a full merit scholarship. During this time he supported working part time in a Detroit pawnshop, and then became founder and President of a small long distance phone company. He spent one semester as a student at Columbia University, and graduated (magna cum laude) with a BA in economics. He then went back to the University of Michigan Law School, and graduated in 1991, subsequently moving to the Washington, D.C. area, where he became a member of the Maryland and Washington D.C. bar.

Joe spent the next year in Senator Carl Levin's office, working on Paul Tsongas' presidential campaign, and on the Clinton Presidential transition team. Afterwards he went to Australia and New Zealand, doing volunteer work.

Returning again to Michigan, he worked on the Senate Primary Campaign of former Congressman Bill Brodhead, and then on the Senate campaign of Senator Spencer Abraham. With the assistance and encouragement of Congressman Brodhead, he formed his own private practice in 1994 in the Detroit suburb of Lathrup Village, and did a good deal more pro bono work than he would recommend to anyone else. After a few years, he set up the non-profit corporation Tomorrow, Inc., to do pro-bono legal work.

Jordan Sparks