Alan Brown

Alan T. Brown is Director of New Partnership Engagement at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. Alan was injured in 1988, at the age of 20, when his neck was crushed by an ocean wave at a Club Med in Martinique. The accident caused a C5-6 spinal cord injury and left Alan, a hockey player, quadriplegic, with no movement below his chest. On his 21st birthday, Alan underwent surgery to have two metal plates and 11 screws inserted in his spinal column. For nearly 31 years since the accident, Alan and his family have, through the Alan T Brown Foundation to Cure Paralysis, provided support, education, and advocacy for the paralysis community. Initially, the focus for the foundation was on finding a cure for paralysis—a “magic bullet” that would help everyone living with paralysis to walk again. But after years in a wheelchair, and the difficult challenges to overall health and emotional wellbeing that paralysis presents, Alan and his family decided to overhaul the mission of the foundation. Today, the foundation focuses on improving the lives of people living with paralysis through peer mentoring, outreach, and fundraising to help others with basic needs like wheelchairs and ongoing medical care. And now Alan has joined the Reeve Foundation to extend the reach and impact of his message to the paralysis community. Alan has lived in Florida for the last decade, where he has enjoyed a successful career in public relations and marketing. He has worked for Slim-Fast Foods, organizing advertising campaigns for top celebrities; he managed community affairs for the Florida Marlins during their World Series-winning season in 1997, and launched a sports radio station. Today, he owns the public relations firm PrimeTime Public Relations & Marketing, and travels the country on behalf of the Reeve Foundation to advocate, increase awareness, and make an impact on the quality of life of other people living with paralysis and their families. He also has achieved many personal goals, including completing three New York City Marathons, skydiving, and scuba diving, but his proudest accomplishment is becoming a father to his two young sons. In his role at the Reeve Foundation, Alan will focus on extending the reach of the Foundation’s impact on the greater public, creating new opportunities for partnership with our peer organizations, galvanizing efforts to advocate for the rights of people living with paralysis, increasing the visibility of our programs, bolstering our fundraising efforts, and on further developing our new national peer-to-peer mentoring initiatives.