Euclid Alumni Take 5 with Jill Delaney Byrne '79

Jill Delaney Byrne, Euclid Senior High School Class of 1979 and designer of the CoolSource™ Cooling System for health care personnel experiencing heat stress while wearing personal protective equipment.

Since graduating from Euclid Senior High School, Jill Byrne MSN, RN, CNOR has spent several decades in obstetric and surgical nursing. She is currently working in surgery and is planning on completing her PhD this year at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.  

In 2010, Jill decided to advocate not only for patients, but for operating room staff members struggling
from heat stress while wearing layers of personal protective equipment. Designing a disposable cooling vest
for the operating room staff to improve comfort and civility was an innovative approach to address a
contemporary health care challenge. Jill observed dramatic improvements in the staff’s mood and physical
well-being while wearing the cooling vest, and she knew research was necessary to bring awareness to the dangers
of occupational heat stress.

The CoolSource™ Cooling System is available throughout the United States for health care personnel
experiencing heat stress while wearing personal protective equipment. Jill was recognized last fall for her
innovative accomplishments as the recipient of Cleveland’s Homegrown Hero for Medical Innovation,
sponsored by Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

1. Where did you grow up in Euclid?
I grew up in the northwest corner of Euclid close to Euclid Hospital where I worked for many
years as a Labor and Delivery nurse. I had the pleasure of meeting-up with many former
classmates and their families and assisting them with the delivery of their babies. Over the
years, I have been honored to hear about those babies, their accomplishments, what they are
doing now, and many are now parents themselves.

2. Where did you go to school before Euclid High?
Lincoln Elementary School, Kindergarten through sixth grade. The summer prior to sixth grade I was invited to take a
consumer education course. I was assigned the ‘lost and found’ project to identify and total the
catalog price of all the items left in the lost and found that year. We also learned how to measure
the efficacy of household products in the classroom compared to how the products were
advertised to perform. Another valuable life skill our class learned was price comparisons of
selected items and their costs in several area grocery stores. At Shore Junior High, from seventh to ninth grade, I
was the reigning deck tennis champion (you would have had to attended Shore to know
what deck tennis is). My homeroom teacher, Ms. Hastings, taught home economics classes and sent me across the street to Taylor’s Bi-Rite during study hall to purchase supplies for the cooking classes. Occasionally, there was a mandatory stop at Hough Bakery for chocolate chip cookies, which was located next to the grocery store.

3. Which teacher or class at Euclid do you most remember and why?
My most memorable class was at the C. E. Orr Ice Arena, gym class with Mr. Daugherty. We boarded
a bus that drove us to the arena where ‘Doc’ Daugherty taught the class to ice skate. Besides a
few Euclid hockey players, there were no future Olympic skaters in the class, but Mr. Daugherty
possessed a great gift to decrease our fear of the ice. Over the course of the semester, Mr.
Daugherty would unclench our fists that were clinging to the fence surrounding the ice rink, and
by the end of the semester we were actually able to successfully skate forward and backward
without too many broken bones.

4. Did you have a favorite spot in Euclid, and what did you like about it?
My favorite spot, or event, was ‘Euclid’s Memorial Day parade route.' Community groups, school
bands, majorettes, cheerleaders, city officials in decorated convertibles, police and firemen, to
name a few, would gather at the Shore Center parking lot behind the Shore Theatre, Lake
Theater, and Shore Bowling alley to embark out onto Lakeshore Boulevard, turning left at ‘the point’
in front of Shore Junior High, and march down East 222nd Street. I was a majorette from the seventh grade at
Shore until graduation from Euclid High. After months of practice and preparation, the
squads of majorettes and their respective bands from the three junior highs and the senior high
school would proudly display their best smiles as we marched past the iconic wood-platform
judges stand, set up in front of the Police Station. The parade ended at Euclid City Hall where
city officials would pay tribute to U.S military members who served our country. The Memorial Day
parade was an anticipated yearly event which offered a strong sense of community engagement
for Euclid’s residents.

5. What, if anything, about your Euclid High experience would you do over?
My ‘do-over’ would definitely include taking astronomy classes in the Planetarium to learn
about earth and space science. The high-tech theater that projects stars, planets, and
constellations has been available to students for the last 50 years and the technology was
certainly underappreciated when I was a student. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Peters, at Lincoln
Elementary School introduced me to the Planetarium on a field trip while we studied Greek
mythology. That field trip was the only time I was in the Planetarium and I remember it was very cold!

To participate or nominate someone for the Euclid Alumni Take 5 column, contact Greg Fondran at alumni@euclidschools.org.