E. Antonio Mangubat, MD, President and Chair

Welcome to the Hair Foundation's annual update. For those of you who have closely followed our progress, you know that we set high standards and aim even higher with our annual agenda.

In 2009, we accomplished our three biggest objectives: form a Scientific Advisory Council, convene our Industry Advisory Council and our Board of Trustees, and begin to work on an International Seal of Recognition program. These accomplishments have been made possible from the Foundation's involved and dedicated Board, advisory councils and corporate partners, not just our corporate donors. Bosley, P&G, Lexington International, Spencer Forrest, Medical Hair Restoration (MHR), Understand.com, and Merck & Co., understand our needs; their business resources and experience help us meet our greater mission. This is one of the key success factors to the high value proposition of becoming involved with the Hair Foundation at any level.

However, last year proved to be our most challenging one as some of our largest contributors merged and scaled back operations, making our job of fundraising and finding new financial support to continue our programs an uphill battle. In these tough economic times, many non-profit organizations are facing budgetary cuts and the Hair Foundation is no different. We would be unable to bring you the programs and content that we offer without support from our partners in the hair community.

This year, one of our key objectives is to fully leverage our partners' skills and experience to help raise the value proposition even higher. Here are several opportunities for you to get involved:

2010 Goals

• Help us develop and fund a Hair Loss DVD and educational materials to be distributed to 900-plus cosmetology schools, cosmetology educators and members of the American Association of Cosmetology Schools and the Cosmetology Educators of America
• Contribute to the Childhood Leukemia Foundation
• Submit an application for research or review, or fund a clinical study through the Seal Program or Scientific Advisory Council
• Support patient surgeries for Operation Restore (OR)

Get involved in sponsoring our efforts as we move to broaden the types of topics and speakers we bring to the public. We will include more conversations with business leaders in the hair-related field at the Hair Foundation annual meeting, as well as events focused on industry and product best practices. We seek fresh input on new approaches, topics, and areas of focus to provide to the public. You can read more about these efforts in our 2010 Annual Newsletter.

And finally, I want to thank the Board, Officers, our donors, partners and volunteers for entrusting me as your President. I welcome the challenge and look forward to a great year for the Foundation as this will be my last one as president.

Please feel free to email me at info@hairfoundation.org with your interest in either contributing to these objectives or with your thoughts for other areas to explore.

Sincerely,