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Ken Tolton, right, co-owner of Duke Aerial Inc., and Jay Noddle, president and CEO of Noddle Companies, shake hands in front of one of Duke’s purple construction booms. The company painted 25 booms and scissor lifts purple — the color of pancreatic cancer awareness. Tolton’s wife, Linda, has stage four pancreatic cancer and Noddle’s father, Harlan, lost his life to the disease in 2005. |
Linda is Tolton’s wife of 12 years. In July, at the young age of 45, she was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and given just six months to one year to live.
More than 300 of the Toltons’ family members and friends also don the bracelets to raise awareness about pancreatic cancer. While the purple bands are somewhat subtle, Tolton has developed another way to educate the public about pancreatic cancer that is more noticeable.
“When Linda was first diagnosed, nobody in my world knew how serious pancreatic cancer is,” Tolton said. “There is a perception that most cancers can be treated and cured with surgery and chemotherapy, but that is not the case with pancreatic cancer when caught at a later stage.”
As the co-owner of Duke Aerial, Inc. — a construction equipment rental business based in Atlantic, Iowa — Tolton is painting 25 booms and scissor lifts purple, the color of pancreatic cancer awareness, to “Rise Up For Cancer Research.”
At no cost to its customers, Duke Aerial will donate a percentage of the fees to rent the purple construction equipment to the “Linda Tolton Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund” at the University of Nebraska Foundation. The fund will benefit the research of UNMC cancer specialist Jean Grem, M.D.
UNMC is one of the leading centers in the country for pancreatic cancer research. The National Cancer Institute recently awarded a $5.3 million, five-year Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant in pancreatic cancer to the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center. Dr. Grem and Tony Hollingsworth, Ph.D., are principal co-investigators on the grant.
“The goal of painting part of our fleet purple is to raise the awareness and educate people about pancreatic cancer,” Tolton said. “By doing this, we can build research dollars to hopefully, some day, prevent this from happening to other families.
“Cancer is not the death sentence it was 20 years ago. Today, many types are very treatable. Linda and I just want that to be the case with pancreatic cancer in the future.”
Currently, tools for early detection of pancreatic cancer do not exist, which is a major reason why it’s a leading cause of cancer death. Signs and symptoms typically don’t appear until pancreatic cancer is quite advanced, which is exactly what happened in Linda’s case.
She didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until she began experiencing severe stomach pains this past June. Doctors now believe the pains were due to a cancerous tumor that had spread to her liver. She has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments at UNMC since August.
After hearing about Ken Tolton’s “Rise Up For Cancer Research,” one Omaha family was the first in line to participate.
Jay Noddle, who ironically already was renting equipment from Duke Aerial Inc., is the first to feature a purple boom on his Aksarben Village job site and plans to encourage others in the industry to rent the same equipment.
Noddle is president and CEO of Noddle Companies, a commercial real estate development firm headquartered in Omaha. He is excited about the prospect of more research funding for pancreatic cancer, a disease that took the life of his father, Harlan Noddle, in 2005.
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Asked what his father would think of Duke Aerial’s decision to paint equipment purple in the name of pancreatic cancer awareness and research, Jay Noddle said, “I know he’d think the idea these folks have is terrific and want to make sure we had purple lifts at all our job sites.”
Though November happens to be pancreatic cancer awareness month, Tolton is committed to supporting and spreading the message on the importance of cancer research long-term.
“I don’t intend on repainting them, so there will be some longevity to this,” he said. “I sincerely hope it has an impact well into the future, until a cure is found.”
For more information about how you can help, visit www.dukeaerialinc.com.
In addition to the Omaha/Council Bluffs store, the company also has locations in Des Moines, Iowa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, St. Joseph, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan.