Mary-Beth Fisk's Biography

Mary-Beth Fisk, President & COO, South Texas Blood and Tissue Center

In 2011, Mary Beth Fisk was appointed President & Chief Operating Officer of the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center. She oversees all operations of the Center to include a full service tissue bank, blood services, GenCure operations to include tissue, marrow and Peripheral blood stem cell collection/processing program, the Texas Cord Blood Bank, as well as oversight of support services such as IS/IT, QA, and Communications departments.
Mary Beth has 15 years of experience in the tissue banking field and over 25 years experience in blood banking and administration. She is a Certified Medical Technologist (MT) with a focus on specialization in blood banking, a Certified Quality Auditor for the American Society for Quality (ASQ), and a Certified Tissue Banking Specialist (CTBS). She serves in many leadership positions with the national blood, cellular therapy, and tissue banking professional standard-setting organizations. She currently serves in numerous capacities with the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), America’s Blood Centers (ABC), as well as the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB). She is presently serving a second term as treasurer on the Board of Governors of the AATB. Mary Beth was elected to serve on the AABB Cellular Therapy Coordinating Board and has done so for the past two years. In the past, Mary Beth has served as Chair of the Program and Accreditation Committee of the AATB and served as Vice-Chair of the Tissue Bank Council for the AATB, and as Secretary of the Chapter 1404 ASQ. Mary Beth has been responsible, over the past 10 years, for the continuing development and operations of the cadaveric tissue bank and the Texas Cord Blood Bank (a public cord blood bank program) – program design, contractual agreements, training, development of the processing technology, and oversight of the collection, processing and storage, and distribution of cord blood. Mary Beth serves as the Executive Director of The Blood & Tissue Center Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to support select programs of the Center. Mary Beth has a passion for the cord blood and adult bone marrow PBSC programs, primarily due to being a stem cell transplant family. Her nephew, Bradley, (who was raised just as a son), received a stem cell transplant in March 2008. The only possible stem cell donor for Bradley was a high degree of his match, due to Native American ancestry. Six months post-transplant, Bradley lost his battle with cancer due to graft versus host disease. The experience has greatly enhanced Mary Beth’s passion to increase opportunities for patients to have quality cord blood available for transplantation.