In Memory of Edie Van Putten, SWOG Attorney

Edie was one of our longest-serving senior staff members, having joined the team when Dr. Larry Baker was group chair. She was SWOG’s first attorney, I believe, and she was the only person on our legal team (now three strong) for ages.

Until Edie came on board, SWOG had largely accepted standard industry contracts in partnering with the companies that provided drugs and distribution funds for our trials. But as trials became more complex, and as contracts with industry partners extended beyond just investigative agents, to areas such as funding for translational medicine and specimen collection and sharing, we had to become more sophisticated. So, we hired Edie.

It turned out to be a great move. Edie built a program of engagement with our pharmaceutical partners. She rewrote standard contracts and material use agreements, to better meet SWOG’s needs, creating a legal infrastructure that has served us incredibly well in the intervening years.

As contracts multiplied and became ever more complex, we increasingly relied on her expertise, and she also became our lead on agreements for data sharing and for the collection, use, and management of human specimens. More than that, she became SWOG’s trusted advisor on all matters that could benefit from a legal perspective.

Focusing on Edie’s impressive professional accomplishments paints only part of the picture, though. To know Edie was to be regularly – and usually delightfully – surprised by her. For example, we Midwesterners (yes, I grew up in Illinois) have an image to uphold as staid and respectable, and she had this down pat, but her command of salty language, when the situation called for it, was second to none.

Edie had a dry humor that she used to lift her colleagues when situations got frustrating and progress stalled, and she had a special talent for defusing tensions during contract negotiations. This does not mean she was a pushover.

In fact, Edie earned tremendous respect from her pharmaceutical company counterparts, respect conveyed clearly in the many messages we’ve gotten this week from those counterparts in response to the news of her death.

Edie chose law in midlife, as a second career. After raising a family, she went back to school and earned a law degree. She arrived at SWOG not long after that.

She loved her work with SWOG and was inspired by the larger mission of making a difference for patients with cancer, but her family was clearly the primary focus of her life. Her coffee break talk with colleagues (even after coffee breaks moved to Zoom) was never talk about herself but was all about those she loved – her grandchildren, her parents, her husband, her kids, her in-laws.

This week, many at SWOG who worked with Edie have shared wonderful memories – and very real grief. Hope Foundation president and CEO Jo Horn, who worked closely with Edie from the start, said that she constantly transcended boring classifications:

“She was brave in so many ways. Not just because she went back to school midlife, or because she professionally put herself out there, or because as a new lawyer she advocated fiercely and intelligently against Goliath pharma … but because she was also deeply devoted to doing all of that while being the matriarch of her large family, and central at her church, and sincerely interested in the lives of her colleagues.”

I couldn’t have said it better. In fact, I’ll close with yet another spot-on quote from Jo – her description of Edie as “a badass in the guise of a pretty normal Midwestern lady.” In whichever guise, she is sorely missed.
 

In lieu of flowers, Edie’s family encourages donations in Edie’s name to Friendship Church Benevolence Fund at friendshipchurchinfo.com/giving or by PayPal at EdieVPmemorial@gmail.com.