Guided by a dedicated team.
“The six of us are just a group of people
who want to make a difference.”
Co-founder Dr. Byron Henry
We are pleased to introduce you to the Free to Smile Foundation Board Members, people who dedicate their time, resources and energy to fulfilling the foundation’s mission. These individuals are amazing people who take action today, not just talk about doing good in the world someday.
Thoughts on our calling
The Free to Smile Foundation board members feel they have a moral and ethical responsibility to contribute to others who are less fortunate. Here in America we are blessed with opportunity, something these folks in developing countries overseas don’t have.
Dr. Byron Henry
Dr. Byron Henry, an oral maxillofacial surgeon, says his life has come full circle in that he gets to do what he loves while giving back. During his surgical residency at Indiana University, he developed an affinity for the “cleft kids” who had wonderful dispositions and were full of energy. In addition to serving as partner for Northwest Oral and Facial Surgery, Dr. Henry makes two to three overseas trips a year on humanitarian missions to provide free cleft lip/palate surgery to underprivileged and impoverished children and adolescents. As he says, “Many of the kids we’re helping live on dirt floors.”
As co-founder of Free to Smile Foundation, he not only finds the work fulfilling but also takes pride in its educational role. “Part of our purpose is to find a few sites and return to them annually to train local surgeons to do this surgery then move on to other sites,” he says. “We want to help the families and also the countries.”
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Stacy Henry
Stacy Henry was raised on a farm in Fayette County, Ohio, where hard-work ethics and caring for others was ingrained in her daily life. In keeping with her upbringing, it felt natural for her to become the co-founder of Free to Smile Foundation. She earned a B.A. in education at The Ohio State University and taught school for nine years in rural, inner city and suburban schools before dedicating her days to raising her two children, Evan, 6 and Makenna, 2.
Married to oral surgeon Dr. Byron Henry for 14 years, she has enjoyed their worldwide travels, which, she says “helped her gain much understanding about ourselves and those much less fortunate.” In supporting Byron during his years of giving back, Stacy found a deep desire to also make a difference. “Free to Smile Foundation has been a long dream that finally became a reality,” Stacy says. She serves as the administrative lead for the January 2010 mission to Guatemala, and she “looks forward to teaching Evan and Makenna the true meaning of giving as they grow into adulthood.”
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Dr. Jason Culley
Dr. Jason Culley is a general dentist who maintains private practices in Marysville and Grandview Heights, Ohio. Dr. Culley graduated from The Ohio State University College of Dentistry in 2003. He is a member of the American Dental Association, Ohio Dental Association, Columbus Dental Society and Tri-Village Rotary. In addition to serving on the Free to Smile Foundation Board, he is also committed to donating his time annually to provide dental care to the people in the countries targeted by Free to Smile. Dr. Culley resides in the Dublin area with his wife Libby and daughter Quinn.
“I’ve always been interested in a career in health care, mainly because I enjoy helping those in need,” Jason says. “For some time, I’d been looking for an organization to go on a dental mission trip to an underprivileged country. I met Dr. Henry about five years ago and could see that we shared a passion for helping people who are less fortunate, specifically in third-world countries. I took my first trip to Cambodia in March of 2008 and loved the entire experience. I see my role in the foundation to someday organize a group of local dentists and other support staff so that we can commit to serving our mission sites at least a couple of times per year. I think it would be fantastic if the people of our targeted sites could count on our receiving the care they need from our foundation every few months.”
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Bill Klausman
Bill Klausman, attorney, is a partner at Wiles, Boyle, Burkholder & Bringardner Co., L.P.A., where he works closely with small and large companies to coordinate their legal needs to meet their business goals, specializing in business and commercial real estate. He earned his B.A. at Hanover College in Indiana and his J.D. from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, please visit http://www.wileslaw.com/attorneyprofiles.aspx.
“I’ve always been involved in charitable work, and I thought Free to Smile Foundation was a good cause,” Bill says. He said he’s honored to be a part of the foundation and happy to offer legal counsel and support in any way he can. “This is an excellent opportunity to help the less fortunate.”
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Dr. Tyler Smith
Dr. Tyler Smith was born and raised in Northern California where he pursued water sports and made the most of “the great outdoors.” After graduating from U.C. San Diego, he became a full-time white-water rafting guide, a job that took him all over the world, exposing him to many people in need in developing countries. Before going to medical school at University of Nevada, he lived in Lake Tahoe, CA where he skied and mountain biked. He pursued training in orthopedic surgery at The Ohio State University Medical Center Residency Program and will begin a one-year postgraduate fellowship in spine surgery at Stanford University. “After that, who knows?” Tyler says. Good thing his wife Sherri and two beautiful children Logan and Maddie share his adventurous spirit.
“I’d been looking for worthy medical causes to get involved in, and Free to Smile Foundation evolved at the perfect time,” Tyler says. “I’m proud to be a board member and hope to someday oversee the orthopedic arm. I envision a clubfoot mission that would nicely complement our charter goal of providing medical services to underprivileged children and adolescents throughout the world.”
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Dr. Tim Bartholomew
Dr. Tim Bartholomew is a maxillofacial surgeon working in Cameroon, W. Africa at a mission hospital in Ngaoundere, Northern Cameroon. He has worked full time in Africa since 2003 as a volunteer doctor with his wife, Huyen. She is a family practice doctor who specializes in obstetrics and has previously spent 5 years in Cambodia before they married. Other countries that he's worked in for significant periods of time include Gabon, Guinea, Mali and Niger, W. Africa as well as Cambodia and the Mercy Ships. Their present hospital is a non profit hospital serving the entire northern Cameroon region, as well as drawing from neighboring countries of Chad and Central African Republic. It is called Ngaoundere Prostestant Hospital.
Tim's specific work involves doing maxillofacial, craniofacial surgery and head trauma and teaching African doctors in a residency program (Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons) that has been set up to be able to continue themselves in the same type of surgical procedures when they return to their home countries in various parts of Africa.
His training background includes dental school at the Ohio State University, internship training at Loyola University, Maywood, IL, as well as fellowship training at: 1.) the Oral Surgical Institute, Nashville, 2.)University of Miami School of Medicine in Tumor and Reconstructive Surgery 3.) Posnick Center for Facial Plastic Surgery, Washington DC, and 4.) training in Craniofacial surgery with Ian Jackson, Detroit.
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