Melissa Tumblin, Oticon Medical Ambassador Leadership Award recipient.
Alan Raffauf, VP of Marketing Oticon Medical with Melissa Tumblin of Ear Community, Fort Lauderdale, FL, August 2022.
On Saturday, August 13th, 2022, Alan Raffauf (VP of Marketing) of Oticon Medical honored Melissa Tumblin of the Ear Community Organization, with the Ambassador Leadership Award in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, recognizing her for her tireless work in the D/HH community for nearly 13 years. Since 2011, Oticon Medical has brought a select group of advocates together annually who have been advocating for bone anchored hearing systems, especially the Oticon Medical Ponto. Saturday’s event was hosted by Oticon Medical bringing together some of the many advocates who have advocated for the Ponto over the years. Alan Raffauf spoke about advocacy and how much he has enjoyed these times together with everyone over the years and learning about everyone’s individual journeys to help someone they love hear better. Alan described advocacy as “to change “what is” into “what should be”. Melissa and her daughter, Ally, are two of Oticon Medical’s oldest Ponto advocates. Ally was aided with the Oticon Medical Ponto Pro at 11 months of age in 2010 and is now aided with the Ponto 5 Superpower. Since then, the mom and daughter duo team have been advocating for better hearing, especially for the Microtia and Atresia community with Ponto. Thank you to Alan Raffauf for embracing advocacy and for giving community members, like the Tumblin Family, the opportunity to advocate for children and adults, as well as their loved ones, giving them the opportunity to thrive.
Melissa stated that “It was an absolute honor to receive the Ambassador Leadership Award and that the past 12 years of collaborating with Oticon Medical have been such an amazing journey that she will always cherish.” Over the years, Melissa and Ally had the opportunity to meet many advocates, young and older, and have felt like the bond between everyone has become a family advocating for the same need while getting to know each other’s journey and learning more of the different struggles individuals have when it comes to hearing loss. At the advocacy meeting, Justin Pfeiffer (VP of Sales) of Oticon Medical, wore his National Microtia and Atresia awareness wristband that he has worn over the years ever since attending one of Ear Community’s summer events. A special thank you to Brendalys Trinidad for all of her support over the years managing the advocacy events and going above and beyond for every advocate. The support that the Tumblin Family and Ear Community has received over the years as a collaborative partner with Oticon Medical has been truly amazing and it is moments like this that mean so much to the Melissa and Ally and her family as well as to the Microtia and Atresia community.
Thank you to everyone over the years at Oticon Medical US, including the Danish, Canadian, French, South African and Malaysian teams for collaborating with Ear Community when helping those in need of a bone anchored hearing system be able to obtain one through Ear Community. Ear Community has donated over 150 bone conduction hearing systems since 2012. Many of these hearing devices were made available with Oticon Medical’s help and Ear Community will forever be grateful. Thank you to the friendships made and the shared passion behind helping children and adults hear their best. Here’s to the amazing times we’ve shared all these years and to the amazing times yet to come!
On April 27th, 2022, a press release announced the acquisition of Oticon Medical by Cochlear, the global leader in implantable solutions for hearing loss. As part of the transaction, Cochlear has committed to providing ongoing support for Oticon Medical’s base of more than 75,000 hearing implant recipients, which includes cochlear and acoustic implants. Cochlear has also committed to seeking the develop of products that will be compatible with existing Oticon Medical implants, so a patient will be able to continue to access the new sound processor technology with their existing implant. This was an overall decision for Demant, Oticon Medical’s parent company, to discontinue its efforts in hearing implants, but to also find a company (Cochlear) who would go on to care for and continue support of the Ponto hearing device product line.
Here are some wonderful memories from the event.
