About Us

The Oklahoma Blood Institute – and its partner organizations Arkansas Blood Institute, Texas Blood Institute and Coffee Memorial Blood Center – collectively are the sixth-largest non-profit blood collector in the nation. No matter the location, we provide the donor-to-patient lifeline in our local communities.

Oklahoma Blood Institute is the sixth-largest non-profit blood collector in the nation, providing more than 90% of the state’s blood to over 160 hospitals, medical facilities and air ambulances statewide.

In recent years, blood centers in Texas and Arkansas joined the OBI system, ensuring hospital partners in those areas have access to a reliable, sustained blood supply. In Arkansas, the Arkansas Blood Institute provides blood for patients in more than 40 hospitals statewide. In Texas, Coffee Memorial Blood Center provides blood for patients across the High Plains region and Texas Blood Institute provides for all major hospitals in the Texoma region.

Innovation & Research

As medicine and the needs of patients evolve, so do we. We advance the science of blood banking by conducting research, developing innovative technology solutions and connecting potential research subjects with studies available in their area.

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  • Our History

    Before 1940

    1818 – The first recorded successful human-to-human blood transfusion is performed by British obstetrician Dr. James Blundell, to treat a postpartum hemorrhage.

    1901 – ABO blood types are discovered by biologist Karl Landsteiner.

    • depiction of blood transfusion

  • Our History

    1940s

    Dr. Charles Drew, an African American physician and medical researcher, revolutionizes blood banking by establishing large-scale blood banks, bloodmobiles and plasma processing for the war effort. Drew also fought strenuously against the segregation of blood supplies by race.

    1940 – The Rh blood group is discovered, adding to the blood typing available to develop the system we know today.

    1949 – Our Amarillo blood center is charted as a nonprofit corporation in Texas, under the name Potter County Memorial Blood Center.

    • Dr. Charles Drew

  • Our History

    1950s

    1950 – The plastic blood bag is introduced to transfusion medicine, replacing fragile glass bottles that were used previously.

    • Blood Bag

  • Our History

    1960s

    1965 – The Amarillo blood center is renamed to Coffee Memorial Blood Center, after James Robert Coffee, MD. a promising young physician from Amarillo, Dr. Coffee died just before his 22nd birthday from a hemorrhagic condition.

    • Coffee Memorial Blood Institute History

  • Our History

    1970s

    1976 – Oklahoma Blood Institute is incorporated by the Oklahoma County Medical Society, after local physicians recognize the need to improve the community’s blood-related health care services.

    1977 – We begin operations as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) blood center, with donation centers in Oklahoma City and Lawton that serve 35 local hospitals.

    • Oklahoma County Medical Society

  • Our History

    1980s

    1981 – We become self-sufficient in blood supply, with local donors able to provide enough blood to keep shelves stocked at member hospitals.

    1989 – OBI is established as the donor center for the National Marrow Donor Program, to help save the lives of patients with life-threatening blood and bone cancers and blood diseases.

    • Dr. Robert O. Gilcher
    • blood donation
    • nurses sorting blood bags
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    • Our History

      1990s

      1991 – OBI becomes the first blood center in the nation to implement the additional AIDS-screening test for the HIV-1 antigen.

      1995 – We deliver an additional 900 blood products to hospitals before victims arrived from the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Oklahomans responded by donating to help rebuild the blood supply after the tragedy.

      • Murrah Bombing

    • Our History

      2000s

      2001 – OBI flies blood to New York City to assist with the emergency response to the September 11 attacks, the first blood center in the nation to do so. Nearly 7,500 units of blood were donated in the three days following the attack.

      2004 – The Texas Blood Institute is formed, supplying blood products to eight Texas hospitals in five counties around Wichita Falls.

      2008 – We establish Global Blood Fund, a charitable organization that works to improve the availability and safety of blood in some of the world’s poorest nations.

      • Blood transported to air national guard

    • Our History

      2010 - Present

      2014 – Opened Oklahoma’s first umbilical cord blood bank.

      2015 – We add to our footprint in Arkansas, opening a donor center in Little Rock to better serve Arkansans in the area.

      2016 – Oklahoma Blood Institutes welcomes Coffee Memorial Blood Center in Amarillo into the organization. This blood center, which was established in 1965 and named for a local physician, retains its name and history of serving the High Plains area.

      2020 – We launch convalescent plasma collections to help critically ill COVID-19 patients, collecting more than 20,000 units from local donors.

      • Plasma bag
      • convalescent plasma
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      Leadership

      • John Armitage, MD

        President and CEO

      • Kim van Antwerpen

        Chief Operating Officer

      • Randy Stark

        Chief Financial Officer

      • Tammy Whiteley

        Vice President, Donor Recruitment & Community Relations

      • Jeannie Gardner

        Vice President, Donor Services

      • Charles Mooney

        Vice President, BioDevelopment

      • Terry Ridenour

        Vice President, Center Administration & Operations

      Board of Directors

      • Richard Boatsman, MD

        Chair, Board of Directors

      • David R. Carpenter

        Vice Chair, Board of Directors - President, American Fidelity

      • John Adams

        Chief Hospital Executive, Integris Southwest Medical Center

      • John Armitage, MD

        President & CEO, Oklahoma Blood Institute

      • Frank Barnett, MD

      • Larry Bookman, MD

      • Scott Calhoon, MD

        President, SWC Production Inc.

      • David A. Flack, MD

        Pathology Associates of North Texas

      • Judy Goforth, PhD, RN

        Chickasaw Nation Health System

      • Jay Allen Gregory, MD

      • Joe M. Hodges

        Regional President, SSM Health Oklahoma

      • David L. Holden, MD

        McBride Orthopedic Hospital

      • Henry J. Hood, PLLC

      • Randal Carl Juengel, MD

        Department of Pathology, SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital

      • Sumit Nanda, MD

        Oklahoma Retinal Consultants

      • W.H. (Bud) Oehlert, MD

      • Gary L. Patzkowsky, DO

      • Craig Sperry

        Valero Energy Corporation

      • Paul Stout, MD

        Arkansas Pathology Associates

      • Evan Vincent

        Attorney, Crowe & Dunlevy

      • Ted Violett, MD

        Covenant Living Village

      • Kristi R. Weaber

        Mayfield Law Firm

      • Garland Wilkinson

        Executive VP/Chief Operating Officer, MidFirst Bank

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