In Memoriam

Kathy Mears was a true professional. Just look at the meaning of the word professional in the dictionary. A professional is someone who engages in, or is worthy of, high standards; offers instruction in a profession; a person who does something with great skill. Kathy exemplified the term professional.

Kathy’s forte was her ability to organize and lead. She was President of the American Society of Electroneurodiagnostic Technologists (ASET) from 1985-1987. She was ASET’s Training and Education Chair (1983-1985) and a member of the Board of Trustees (1981-1983), Nominating Committee (1978-1979), Ad Hoc Job Descriptions Committee (1980-1981), Constitution and Bylaws Committee (1987-1990), Future Sites Committee (1987-1989), and Licensure Committee (1982-1983). She served as Director for Course I in 1976-1978 as well as 1981-1982. When ASET met in San Jose in 1992, Kathy took care of local arrangements. Most recently, she was working as CoChair for the 1995 Scientific Program in Washington, DC.

Because she seemed to have endless energy and fortitude, Kathy was able to balance her interests and serve many different professional organizations. In addition to holding offices and chairing committees for ASET, Kathy was involved with local electroneurodiagnostic associations as well as the Western Society of Electroneurodiagnostic Technologists (WSET), serving as President (1978-1979), Education Chair (1977-1978), and Scholarship Chair (1985-1987) of WSET.

She was extremely dedicated to the goals and endeavors of the American Board of Registration of Electroencephalographic and Evoked Potential Technologists (ABRET), and first began as an associate examiner for ABRET in 1976, barely two years after she attained her own registration certificate in EEG. Kathy was one of thirty-eight candidates who passed the first ABRET evoked potential registry exam in 1983. She was elected to the ABRET Board and served from 1987-1994. She was the Evoked Potential Section Chair from 1987-1990. She went on to become the ABRET Chairperson from 1990–1993, taking the Board to new heights of organization and management.

Teaching was a passion with Kathy. She was a J.R. Knott Education Lecturer for Grass Instrument Company from 1981 on. She assisted in research projects, authored papers, presented numerous lectures and workshops, and assisted with neurology resident and electroneurodiagnostic fellow training throughout her career. Kathy had the rare honor of serving on Project Hope’s final voyage to Brazil in 1973 as an electroencephalographic technician responsible for training four students in electroencephalography. In the last few years, Kathy was instrumental in developing a curriculum for EEG training at De Anza College near San Jose.

Kathy was a respected manager and Chief Clinical Neurophysiology Technologist at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California, where she worked since 1981. She was employed by Stanford University Medical Center from 1974-1979 and Peninsula Hospitals and Valley Medical Center in Burlingame, CA from 1979-1981. She had an Associates of Arts degree from the College of San Mateo, California.

Despite all her professional endeavors, Kathy’s greatest accomplishment and her pride and joy was her family, which she loved dearly. She always had a sparkle in her eye and a giggle just waiting to spill out, and made friends wherever she went. Kathy’s untimely death was a shock to all. As one of Kathy’s close friends put it, she was bigger than life.

– Cindra Altman, R. EEG/EP T.

Originally published in:

The Neurodiagnostic Journal, 35: 1-2, 1995
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00029238.1995.11080497