By Renee Hatcher
NAWCWD Public Affairs

Brett Tanner recently returned to his job as a technician in the NAWCWD Life Cycle Environmental Engineering Department after kayaking for 21 straight days in a campaign to raise awareness for a rare disease that took the life of his best friend.

Jeremy “Miah” Johnson, a lifelong Ridgecrest resident, passed away suddenly at the age of 34 in January 2007 of Wegener’s granulomatosis, a form of Vasculitis. Tanner vowed to keep Johnson’s name alive and teamed up with their friend Jerry Sparks for a marathon paddle down the California coast. The trip raised awareness as well as $5,000 for the Vasculitis Foundation. About half of that money came from a fundraiser held in Ridgecrest in June.

“There was a lot of time on the water to think about Miah and life in general,” Tanner said. “This experience has renewed my faith in society, and helped me be a little more at peace with Miah’s death.”

Sparks began kayaking near the California-Oregon border in June. He headed down the coast alone logging about 450 miles before meeting Tanner in Santa Barbara on July 19. Together, they paddled 260 miles south and arrived in San Diego on Aug. 9.

Tanner said one of the greatest outcomes of this journey was all the friends they made. “We met a ton of great people and the connections we made along the way were just unreal,” he said.

During one of his rest stops, Sparks met a lady vacationing from the mid-west who had lost her father a year before from Wegener’s. Tanner said they also came across many people who were either struggling with similar losses, or fighting a life-threatening disease themselves.

“I was really impressed with the way so many people came forward to help us,” Tanner said. “People we didn’t even know opened their homes to us.”

A friend of a friend living in a studio apartment in Long Beach gave Tanner and Sparks the keys to her apartment and her car. She got on her bicycle, rode off to a friend’s house for two days and left them the run of her place.

Upon their arrival in San Diego, Aqua Adventures Kayak Center hosted a reception for Tanner and Sparks. The center also offered free kayak rentals to any one who wanted to paddle out to join them on their last leg into Mission Bay. About a dozen people, including Tanner’s 11-year-old son Sean, took them up on the offer.

“Brett was surprised to see Sean waiting for him,” said Steve Tanner, Brett’s father. “It was a wonderful site seeing them paddling in together. I was a very proud grandpa.”

Tanner and Sparks were leading a flotilla of about 30 other kayakers who had joined them in La Jolla to support their final paddle into Mission Bay.

“This kind of kayaking expedition is a huge undertaking that is very involved and can be very dangerous,” said Jen Kleck, owner of Aqua Adventures. “What they accomplished is very impressive, and spoke a lot about their friend Miah and their relationship with him. I was glad to be part of it.”

Tanner said the last 10 miles were the hardest – mentally not physically.

“I know Miah was with us on this entire journey and I didn’t want it to end,” he said. “I just wasn’t ready for it to be over.”

Tanner is already looking ahead to a similar event for next year to keep Johnson’s memory alive, and to continue to help raise awareness and money for Wegener’s research. Instead of another kayak trip, he may look into a bicycle ride along the California coast.

For more information on this disease visit the Vasculitis Foundation online at www.vasculitisfoundation.org.

PHOTO CUTLINES

TOP PHOTO:
NAWCWD technician Brett Tanner, right, and former Ridgecrest resident Jerry Sparks kayak down the California coast on a campaign to raise awareness for the rare disease - Wegener’s granulomatosis, a form of Vasculitis - that took the life of their friend, Miah Johnson, in 2007.

BOTTOM PHOTO:
Brett Tanner, in foreground, and Jerry Sparks, third from front, are joined by some of the friends they made during their memorial kayak expedition this summer.