Barneys New York Inc.

Heidi Roger, a founding board member of SafeMinds, is very involved in the public policy arena. She was one of the parents involved with passage of the New Jersey Infantile Autism Biomedical Research Act passed in New Jersey. Heidi helped craft the original draft of the first federal autism legislation, the Children's Health Act of 2000. Heidi was a co-author on Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Toxicity, a landmark paper linking the symptoms of autism with excessive exposure to mercury and was published in Neurotoxicology, Medical Hypothesis, Molecular Psychiatry, Mothering Magazine and Autism- Asperger's Digest. She currently serves as the Cure Autism Now representative for the New Jersey's Governor's Council which has funded more than $9 million in autism research in New Jersey. She served as president of the Cure Autism Now New Jersey chapter for two years and co-chaired the first New Jersey/New York Walk Now event, which raised more than $300,000. She has one child, Andrew, 12, who has autism, and began speaking for the first time six months ago. Heidi is the Vice President of Financial Operations for Barney's New York.