Dr. Brian J. Green

Lighting the Path

2007 Beacon of Light Award Honoree

I was Born in NYC, Sept. 20, 1949 and grew up on Long Island, NY, in Valley Stream. I earned my BS degree from SUNY at Buffalo in 1971.  I then took extra courses for another semester to fulfill requirements for veterinary school, finishing in December of 1971.

Awaiting acceptance to veterinary school, I decided to travel cross country in a VW minibus, sporting a huge Afro, a guitar, a dog named Jasmine, my first, and a close friend.  This led to a 2-� month trip to Mexico, camped in various locations, where I developed a love of travel and a passion for pelicans.

I spent another couple of months touring the US; saw many of the natural and manmade wonders, which further deepened my love of travel.

American veterinary schools were unable to clearly define my potential, so I went abroad to the University of Liege, college of veterinary medicine located in Brussels, Belgium, where I spent the next 6 years.  The instruction was in French, which with time, I managed to perfect to the point that my accent was no longer New York, if never quite a native.  After the second year, I took a year off, during which time I tried to develop a career in writing.  I completed several short stories and some poetry, but no publishers were able to clearly define my potential, either. . . and I missed veterinary medicine.  In another three years, I completed my DVM degree, 1978.

During my stay in Belgium, I supported myself with several jobs, including disc jockey for a pub noted for its Common Market location, bar tender, folk singer/ songwriter with a small but loyal following of Belgians from club to club, guitar teacher and English teacher.  I also further deepened my love of travel, and included many trips to Holland, France, Great Britain and Italy, along with voyages in Spain, Tunisia, and Greece.  I discovered that given a bit of time, I could learn enough of the local languages to say please, thank you, and 'one beer' almost anywhere in the world.

Back in the US as a graduate veterinarian, I spent a year in Tennessee, at the new vet school, in an effort to fine-tune my knowledge and learn to pronounce diseases and body parts in English.  I then completed a year's internship in veterinary medicine and surgery at the prestigious Animal Medical Center in Manhattan, the pre-eminent institution at the time, where I managed to develop a reputation as an indefatigable worker and a sponge for knowledge. 

For the past 25 years, I have been in private practice, owning my own animal hospital for more than 20 years. During that time, I have dedicated myself to the care of my patients, and hopefully, have helped their owners along the way.  I have offered my services pro bono to local law enforcement when they decided again to add a K9 Unit to our local police. My contributions to local school events, local publications, little league sponsorship, and support of the community have been consistent.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we worked with an organization in an effort to offer a family in need a place to stay, and made arrangements with our local school administrator to get the children enrolled.  This never came about, but this same organization did refer to us some individuals with 5 cats in need of care, which I provided at no charge.

A defining period of my life came in the form of tragedy.  I fell in love with someone who soon after, was stricken with a rare and usually fatal form of cancer.  Together we fought a remarkable battle, which ultimately we lost.  Dianna died a young woman, but one whom everyone she touched adored.  And during that awful but wonderful year of all that goes with love and cancer, I discovered both an understanding of what is really important, and an incredible distaste for all that is petty and self-centered.  I also learned that giving of oneself for friends and loved ones could reach depths I hadn't known before.

During my internship in Manhattan, I met the woman who was eventually to become my bride.  Kathy and I remained friends through the years, through sometimes tumultuous personal relationships, until years later we finally figured out that we were in love with each other.  We were married the following year.  Kathy was a renowned specialist in veterinary medicine, I a private practitioner.  One of the things that I adored was that she loved me without the trappings of 'better' or 'smarter', but only with sincerity and respect.  Some marriages are competitive; ours was and has always been mutually supportive.  We started as friends, and our friendship has only deepened.

Sometime well into our marriage, childless but longing, we decided to form a family through international adoption.  Friends of ours had successfully completed an adoption from Russia, and we began educating ourselves about the process and possibilities.  Exactly nine months later we were home from Kazakhstan, the other side of the word, with our two wonderful sons, Nathan and Matthew, 8 and 22 months old.

Since then, our family has thrived.  Our boys are 6 � and nearly 8, playing sports, doing well in school, building engineering marvels with Legos, and bringing us all the joy and aggravation that is the job of children. 

I cannot count philanthropy among my achievements, as I have never been in a financial position to consider myself philanthropic.  Instead, charitable would be how I would describe myself.   I have accepted a homemade lasagna as payment in full to remove a needle threader surgically from a kitten owned by a tailor, and some bottles of home made wine from the owner of a sick cat belonging to their child, who couldn't afford the treatment, but I consider that humanity, not philanthropy.  I do, however, donate 2 turkeys every Thanksgiving and Christmas to local food banks, with my children in tow to learn the importance of giving.  I donate to many charities, but concentrate mostly on those dealing with cancer, hospice for cancer victims, and those charities who have made children their focus, from cancer to cleft lip repair, to feeding and educating poor children.  Through work, and because of my vocation, I also contribute to several animal welfare organizations and now, service animals as well.

Recently, I was asked by a local 'gentleman farmer' who learned what I do for a living, to help him with his endeavor.    This was essentially an attempt to establish breeding and husbandry plans for his farm, which is populated by colonial era endangered species of farm animals, including cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and even rabbits.  With little retained knowledge of these species, but with the determination I am capable of if I believe in someone's dreams, I helped assemble a veterinary team that has afforded this project enough momentum to succeed in this laudable venture.  This is the same energy I have tried to bring to my participation in The Tower of Hope Foundation.

My work and a lengthy commute have taken away from the time to pursue what had been lifelong interests, including music, reading, writing, and gardening.  I do still manage to slide in a bit of gardening, vegetable and roses, while Kathy manages to keep our phenomenal perennial beds and borders looking magazine-worthy.  I enjoy exercise, indoor and out, with the limited time I can pursue it.  I love computers, and have integrated them into nearly every aspect of my life.  I have a passion for driving, but needed to give up the sports cars when the children became a higher priority.  My love of travel has been temporarily supplanted by all-inclusives at exotic locations.   Since college, I have been a news and political junky, paying near-obsessive attention to anything political, and counting among my closest friends people on both ends of the political spectrum.  This has only intensified since the tragic loss of my friend Tom Sinton, along with all the other victims of the atrocity we call 9/11.

And those pelicans I mentioned developing an affection for on my first of several trips to Mexico have become an extensive collection of statues and sculptures, from Murano glass to Czech porcelain, from life-sized wood or cement to pewter miniatures, from whirligigs to wind chimes and mobiles.

Lastly, I learned from my father that if you want to get a point across, if you want someone to remember something you've said, if you want to impact someone positively, make them laugh.  I have found in both work and my personal life that he was right.  In good times and tragic ones, finding something to laugh about, and more importantly to me, making someone else laugh as hard and loud as they can, is possibly my highest ambition.