Meet Our Team
Executive Team
Adam Beckett
Founder & CEO
Dr. Adam Beckett is a Board Certified physician in Emergency Medicine and has been in active practice at the University of Missouri Hospital in Columbia since completing his residency at Resurrection Hospital in Chicago in 2006. He is a 1995 graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia with a BS degree in biology.
Following his undergraduate studies he spent 4 years in the United States Marine Corps as an infantry platoon commander in the First Marine Division. He was honorably discharged in 1999 and then attended medical school at the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences.
Today he continues to work at the University of Missouri Hospital and at Truman Veterans Administration Hospital also located in Columbia. In 2011 Dr. Beckett organized Global First Responder LLC and personally funded all of its operations until 2014 when he founded Global First Responder Foundation (GFR) as a 501 (c) (3) tax exempt and all volunteer non-profit organization. GFR focuses its operations on providing medical and community infrastructure development missions across the globe.
Donna Beckett
Fundraising & Development
Donna Beckett is Dr. Adam Beckett’s mother. She is a 1969 graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in Education. She raised 4 sons, all of whom served in the Marine Corps.
She has worked in the airline, travel and clothing sales businesses and in 1992 she founded a 501 (c) (3) tax exempt organization, Assistance League of Mid-Missouri (ALMM). ALMM has grown into a successful philanthropic NGO with 315 members. ALMM is operated entirely by volunteers and has provided millions of dollars in assistance to schools, women and children in central Missouri.
Amy Jordheim
International Logistics & Field Operations
Amy Jordheim has a Master’s in Public Health from Benedictine University and has worked all over the world in public health for 2 decades. She has authored numerous continuing education courses designed to help medical personnel improve and provide more culturally balanced education for their patients. These courses include both infectious and chronic diseases and diseases that are well known around the world but rare in the United States.
Amy most recently developed a course designed to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID. This course has been published in more than 10 languages. She has led more than 75 medical and dental teams into the field during disasters, for post-disaster recovery, and to improve the health and health education in many communities around the world.
In her spare time, Amy is a dedicated volunteer with Global First Responder and Team Rubicon, a Nationally Registered Advanced EMT working on an ambulance and in a busy Emergency Department in rural Colorado, a photographer, a weaver, and most importantly, with her husband of 43 years, a parent and grandparent to a bunch of above-average children (in their own minds) and a wonderful cat named Fiona.
Suzie Lee
Volunteer & Community Health Education Programming
Suzie Lee is life-long educator and long-time medical team volunteer and team leader.
Suzie joined GFR in 2021 and led the Zambia team in 2022. She has led medical teams for the last 12 years around the globe and she loves seeing her teams excel and gel while in the field.
Suzie has been a public and charter school educator for more than 25 years, certified in both general and special education. She joined GFR because of our focus on community sustainability. With her expertise in adult and child education, Suzie focuses her efforts at GFR on building our community health education program.
In joining the board, Suzie stated that having the opportunity to dedicate a GFR water treatment facility in Zambia was one of the most impactful days of her life. She wants to continue to help GFR move forward in sustainability while serving as a board member.
Suzie lives in in Hawaii with her husband, dog, and cat. In addition to a career as a full time teacher, she also runs an Air BnB that she literally built from the ground up. Her husband, Scott, is an acupuncturist and has served on many medical trips, where his work is always in high demand.