Catherine Rizza
Founder
Catherine Rizza has devoted her life to the science of helping people create a family.
As the business manager for Dr. Robert Newton, a pioneer in reproductive therapy, Mrs. Rizza was a first-hand witness to the beginning of assisted reproductive technology and she helped to establish one of the world’s first sperm banks in 1971. As president of the company since 1993, she has helped to build New England Cryogenic Center into one of the largest full-service cryobanks in the world.
In the mid-90s, in order to offer families a greater chance to fight disease, Mrs. Rizza and her husband John founded a second company, the New England Cord Blood Bank, where families can store the stem cells found in umbilical cord blood for future use in treating disease.