Biography of Elise NeeDell Babcock

It all started at age 17, when Elise NeeDell Babcock spent time with a friend with cancer. The night he died, he sent her a message, “Thank you.” And in that moment a single spark of compassion exploded into a lifelong commitment to providing the care that people need when it counts the most--and to teach others to do the same.

Since 1982, Elise has taught thousands of people how to create and celebrate victories that anchor us, day by day to what makes life truly meaningful. Your audience too, will leave her program renewed, strengthened and equipped to deal with whatever daily demands and obstacles they face—on and off the job.

A nationally acclaimed speaker in the business of caring and caring for those who give. Elise is a true pioneer in medical care, she is the founder of Cancer Counseling, Inc. (CCI), just celebrating its 20th anniversary; it was the first agency in the nation to provide free professional counseling and education programs to patients and families during any stage of the disease. Elise’s audiences instantly connect with her words of hope and healing. Because she backs them up with an incredible list of accomplishments in the business world—an impressive client list of leading corporations and medical centers—she is on call across the nation for her results oriented speaking. Her message combines a rare wealth of stories, insights and strategies that come from the heart. Clients include Ortho Biotech, Shell, and Northwestern, Yale and Stanford medical schools and the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

From the very start, Elise combined her passion for people with unsurpassed business savvy to transform the field of healthcare for patients and those that care for them. Referring patients for education and counseling at the point of diagnosis became a national model for the international families treated by CCI at the Texas Medical Center. During her leadership she also supervised a staff of psychiatrists, psychologist and social workers and ran support groups with them. Her audiences today will hear courageous stories form these group experiences. In a healthcare first, she and a psychiatrist led the nation’s first couple’s groups for couples coping with cancer for 8 years. She also developed and led Fortune 500 programs for coping with cancer in the workplace.

Today she is an enthusiastic and dynamic speaker who combines humorous stories with invaluable techniques for taking care of each other at work and at home. She’s the best selling author of When Life Becomes Precious (Bantam, second edition) which is endorsed by the Director of the National Cancer Institute and the National Family Caregivers Association and more than 60 healthcare organizations.

Innovative, practical and always right on target, her powerful proven ideas are helping medical centers, associations, organizations and businesses nationwide. Her topics include Giving Without Giving Out and Celebrating Every Victory.