I first called John Hindman after I read a heart-wrenching article about him describing the tragic loss of his son, Sean, to an opioid overdose. Accompanying the article was a photograph of John sitting in the bleachers holding his son’s well-worn soccer ball.
As a father of two boys, I can’t imagine having to deal with the loss of a child and grieving with the questions you must ask yourself about what you could have done to prevent it.
Shortly after the article ran, John decided to contact the chief executive officer of his company via E-mail to draw attention to the opioid epidemic. Roger Krone, Leidos CEO, was moved by Sean’s story and embraced it as his own. It was fortunate that John caught the attention of Roger who leads this $10B employee-owned contracting company headquartered in Virginia.
Roger’s compassion prompted Leidos to become fully committed to the cause, initially by providing at-home disposal packets and then through a CEO Pledge that he organized to emphasize the importance of finding solutions to the opioid crisis.
I met Roger in October of last year when we both were among the 21 invitees to the White House for the President’s signing of the historic bipartisan opioid legislation—H.R. 6. Since then, Roger’s commitment and that of Leidos has resulted in over 75 distinguished CEOs from across the nation joining the Leidos pledge to help stop the opioid crisis by engaging in active roles to create safe workplaces and increase awareness about the ways to reduce the deaths from opioid overdoses.
I am proud to be one of those CEOs.
The story of Sean Hindman and Leidos was featured last week on Addiction Unplugged, a thoughtful series about the opioid crisis on A&E.
Kudos to Roger and the Leidos team for making the world safer and healthier, and for you CEOs, take the pledge and make a difference!
