--- title: "Hope Happens Here: John McConnell’s 20 Years of Influence, Leadership and Impact" description: While riding his bike five months earlier, McConnell had broken his C1-C2 vertebrae. At the top of the spine, just beneath his skull, it was a potentially catastrophic injury. But the fracture, despite breaking clear through the bone, did not damage his spinal cord. image: https://blog.christopherreeve.org/hubfs/JohnMCConnellFBImage.png --- [Community](https://www.christopherreeve.org/community) [Voices from the Community](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/en) [Hope Happens Here: John McConnell’s 20 Years of Influence, Leadership and Impact](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/en/hope-happens-here-john-mcconnells-20-years-of-influence-leadership-and-impact) # Hope Happens Here: John McConnell’s 20 Years of Influence, Leadership and Impact  John McConnell spotted the story about [Dana Reeve](https://www.christopherreeve.org/todays-care/paralysis-help-overview/dana-reeve/) in the newspaper the week after she died. ![John McConnell running in the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon as part of Team Reeve](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/hs-fs/hubfs/JohnMcConnellTeamReeve.png?width=500&height=438&name=JohnMcConnellTeamReeve.png)Reading it, he was struck by both the scope of her legacy and the Reeve Foundation's resolve to continue the critical work she'd begun. But it was a sentence at the end of the piece – a call for volunteers to join [Team Reeve](https://www.christopherreeve.org/get-involved/fundraise-with-team-reeve/) in the upcoming 2006 New York City Marathon – that brought McConnell up short. "The marathon was a year to the day after my accident," he says. While riding his bike five months earlier, McConnell had broken his C1-C2 vertebrae. At the top of the spine, just beneath his skull, it was a potentially catastrophic injury. But the fracture, despite breaking clear through the bone, did not damage his spinal cord. McConnell knew how lucky he'd been. Now, reading about the Reeve Foundation, he realized that he, too, had a chance to help families whose lives had been reshaped by injuries; he immediately signed up for Team Reeve with a close knit group of four friends who helped him through his recovery and would now join him in raising money for spinal cord injury research by running together. "This was a sign," he says, adding, "Something was in the universe." He found himself running through the miles, a sense of exhilaration spurring his every step. By day's end, he'd raised $50,000 and fallen hard for Reeve's mission. A few months later, he joined its board of directors. The following year, he would raise another $100,000 for Team Reeve. "It was during this time that I began my love affair with the Reeve Foundation, which exists to this day," he says.      As the board's longtime vice chairman, McConnell has helped the Reeve Foundation drive an era of transformative research and quality of life gains for people with paralysis. From the very beginning, he recognized the urgency of the work. "People outside of our community do not understand how devastating a spinal cord injury can be," he says. "Everything changes in an instant. Everything. For you, for your family, potentially for your professional future, your personal future, your financial wellbeing. Everything changes. And guess what? We get to make a difference." McConnell's arrival on Reeve's board coincided not only with the recent loss of Dana, but Christopher's death just 17 months before her own. Losing the beloved couple had left the organization, and the community it served, devastated. But beneath the grief was determination; McConnell soon found himself in the thick of efforts to find and support ambitious research that would pave the way toward treatments. In the decades to come, Reeve Foundation investments would boost the work of pioneers throughout the field, including UCLA scientist Reggie Edgerton whose lab demonstrated that damaged spinal cords could adapt and be retrained with epidural stimulation. Year by year, fueled by Reeve funds, scientists steadily advanced an understanding of spinal cord biology that served as a conduit for new breakthroughs. In 2016, Reeve became the first major investor in [ONWARD Medical's ARC-EX System](https://www.onwd.com/therapy/arc-ex/), a promising treatment for restoring arm and hand function: in 2024, that very treatment made history as the first ever FDA-cleared, non-invasive spinal cord stimulation therapy for people with spinal cord injury. But McConnell's efforts on behalf of the Foundation also extended beyond its boardroom. Since 2006, he's run nine marathons for Team Reeve and recruited half a dozen friends to join him along the way, helping to raise several million dollars for spinal cord injury research. He has championed Reeve's drive to improve quality of life for people with injuries through the extraordinary work of the [National Paralysis Resource Center](https://www.christopherreeve.org/todays-care/)(NPRC); funded by the [Administration for Community Living](https://acl.gov/) and administered by the Reeve Foundation, the NPRC is the only national program that directly serves the 5.4 million Americans living with paralysis. McConnell has not only helped steer the NPRC through funding challenges in recent years but personally introduced newly injured individuals and families to its vital services. "I've lost count of how many times he's reached out to the foundation to connect people who are injured, friends of friends and strangers, who found him because they know his story," says Reeve Foundation President and CEO Maggie Goldberg. "John isn't just an amazing fundraiser and marathoner; he's an ambassador on the ground." For McConnell, Executive Vice President of Workhouse Media, a talent agency, being part of the Reeve Foundation has been a gift he could never have anticipated. "I didn't find the Foundation," he says. "I believe the Foundation found me." The details of the bike accident that brought Reeve to McConnell's life remain vivid. The two sneakers laced together and slung over the handlebars. The slip-sliding motion of one, dangling dangerously close to the front wheel. The sight of his hand reaching down, too late, to catch it, to yank it up and out of the way. He remembers his body, in the air one minute, and on the ground the next. He remembers looking up at the world from below, the right side of his face pressed against the pavement. And he remembers the terror that swept through him when he realized he couldn't lift his head, much less the rest of his body – that he couldn't move anything at all. At the hospital, nurses sliced off his clothes and placed a full body brace around him. Doctors warned his wife he would likely not walk again – that he might not survive at all. As he listened, as if from a distance, McConnell tried to imagine the life he might have if he did survive. *How would he feed himself? How would he go to the bathroom? How would he take care of his family?* But as the hours passed, he slowly regained feeling throughout his body, and his terror gave way to profound relief. "I realized God was not ready for me yet," he says. It would've been easy for McConnell to count his blessings and move on. His life was full and, in many ways, a dream come true. He'd grown up in San Francisco in the 1960s during the heyday of broadcast radio. While a senior in high school, his best friend's father – the groundbreaking KCBS morning host Dave McElhatton – invited him to visit the studio. McConnell took him up on the offer, rising before sunrise one morning to drive to the station overlooking the bay. That was the beginning of his story. "I fell in love with the business right then and there," he says. "It was all very magical." At Pepperdine University, which provided him with a full scholarship to play tennis, McConnell studied communications and 50 years ago nabbed an internship at KHJ, Los Angeles' legendary Top 40 radio station. After graduation, he made his way to New York City and spent a decade climbing the ranks as a producer and manager for the RKO Radio Network, NBC and WOR Radio. In 1989, he returned to San Francisco to serve as news director of KGO, a thrilling run that saw him leading the station to its highest ratings and brushing up against the historic events of the day. When the 1989 earthquake struck the city, McConnell was watching the Giants play in the first game of the World Series. He immediately checked for KGO's broadcast but couldn't find it; later, he would learn that the signal towers had been damaged. As blackouts swept across the skyline, he ran out of the stadium, frantically searching for a ride back to the station. When he saw a motorcyclist, McConnell raced over, opened his wallet and took out all the cash he had. "I said, ‘Here's $80. Please take me to downtown San Francisco,'" he says. He hopped on back of the bike and was back at KGO less than an hour after the earthquake hit. "It took us about an hour and a half to get back on the air, but then we went wall to wall," he says. "That was amazing." Over the next twenty years, McConnell's successes only grew: at the time of his accident, he'd become senior vice president at ABC Radio Networks, overseeing programming for ABC News Radio, ABC Music Radio, ABC Talk Radio and was instrumental in the launch and execution of the ESPN Radio Network. Even with the fractured vertebrae, he was able to quickly get back to work. Soon, his days, apart from intensive physical therapy sessions, were back to normal. But McConnell couldn't shake the sense that he'd narrowly missed a very different life. When he spotted the article about Dana and the Reeve Foundation, he was still wearing a back brace: the chance to support Reeve's mission felt like a kind of kismet. "Once I met the people at the Foundation, I knew this was going to be a calling and a very significant part of my life going forward," he says. Twenty years later, it remains ever so. "These are my people and I'm not going anywhere," he says. For more information about Team Reeve, and to support its members in the upcoming Chicago and New York City Marathons, please [click here](https://www.ChristopherReeve.org/get-involved/fundraise-with-team-reeve/). #### Join Our Movement ### What started as an idea has become a national movement. With your support, we can influence policy and inspire lasting change. [Become an Advocate](https://www.votervoice.net/REEVE/Register) ![](https://www.christopherreeve.org/wp-content/themes/reeve/assets/images/fpo/blog-dc.png) **About John McConnell** McConnell has spent more than four decades helping shape the voices, programs and platforms that have defined American talk and sports radio and television. Today, as Executive Vice President of Talent at Workhouse Media, he works across digital media, podcasting, and radio and television, representing the industry's leading talent. McConnell's career was forged at ABC Radio Networks, where he served as a Senior Vice President of Programming for nearly two decades. He oversaw businesses and programming across a remarkable portfolio that included ABC News Radio, the ESPN Radio Network and nationally syndicated programs featuring some of the biggest names in broadcasting, including Sean Hannity and Paul Harvey. Contemporary coverage of ABC Radio identifies McConnell as a key programming executive behind its national talk-radio business. His influence has extended well beyond traditional radio. At Workhouse Media, McConnell has continued to work with prominent talent including Fox & Friends morning co-host Lawrence Jones and emerging platforms, including representing the hosts of the Ruthless podcast in its licensing partnership with Fox News Media.  His work has also included longstanding connections to sports media at Audacy and ESPN, as well as the development of talent across the evolving audio and digital landscape. A four-time Radio & Records "News/Talk Executive of the Year," McConnell has been recognized by the radio industry with numerous broadcasting and journalism awards for his programming leadership.  From the growth of nationally syndicated talk and sports radio to today's podcast and multiplatform environment, his career reflects a rare continuity in the evolution of American audio media. ### About the Author - Reeve Staff This blog was written by the Reeve Foundation for educational purposes. For more information please reach out to information@christopherreeve.org [![Twitter](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/hubfs/Icon-twitter-square.svg)](https://twitter.com/reevefoundation) [![Facebook](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/hubfs/Icon-facebook-square.svg)](https://www.facebook.com/ReeveFoundation) [![LinkedIn](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/hubfs/Icon-linkedin-square.svg)](https://www.linkedin.com/company/christopher-and-dana-reeve-foundation) ![Reeve Staff](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/hubfs/blog-authors/reeve-blog-author-default.png) The opinions expressed in these blogs are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. [Back to top](https://blog.christopherreeve.org/en/hope-happens-here-john-mcconnells-20-years-of-influence-leadership-and-impact#top)