July 29, 2026 | 27 mins

In this inspiring interview, Colin Gerner shares the story of StacheStrong, a nonprofit born from his brother G.J.'s battle with glioblastoma. Discover how their journey from personal tragedy to impactful fundraising has funded over $7 million in brain cancer research and created a global community of support.

Tumor Type: Glioblastoma
Tumor Grade: Grade IV
Treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, recurrence
Current Stage: In Memory

Resources
Check out a list of the most common medical terms relating to the brain tumor experience: rewired-minds.com/terms
Connect with brain tumor organizations here: https://www.rewired-minds.com/braintumorresources

Connect with Rewired Minds
Website: rewired-minds.com
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Connect with StacheStrong
Website: https://stachestrong.org/
Facebook: Facebook.com/StacheStrong
Instagram: @StacheStrong
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stachestrong-inc/

Be a Guest
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Disclaimer
The stories shared here are personal accounts from the brain tumor community for informational and awareness purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. Always consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding your specific situation. Most importantly, take care of yourself as you listen and process.

Bri (00:06)
I'm Bri Salsman, a brain tumor survivor and identity integration coach, and you're listening to Rewired Minds, a podcast that shares brain tumor stories that change us. Sometimes guests use medical terminology, so I've partnered with Northwestern Medicine Malnati Brain Tumor Institute to provide definitions of common terms. You can find the full list in the show notes. Most importantly, take care of yourself as you listen and process.

Bri (00:29)
Today I'm spotlighting StacheStrong, which is an organization devoted to raising funds and awareness for brain cancer research. StacheStrong was started by two brothers, Colin and G.J., following G.J.'s diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. After a 25-month battle, he passed away in 2019 at only 30 years old. Colin and his amazing community of supporters continue to fight in G.J.'s memory and for all those facing a similar diagnosis.

I'm so grateful to welcome Colin to the conversation to share more. Hi, Colin, how are you?

Colin Gerner (01:00)
I'm great, how are you? Thank you for having me.

Bri (01:02)
Yeah, absolutely. Super excited that you are willing to jump on and give you an opportunity to share with the listeners about what StacheStrong is all about, not only what you have accomplished, but what you see in the future too. All of this started with you and your brother after his diagnosis. So I'd love to hear more from you about that origin.

Colin Gerner (01:26)
My brother, as so many do, had a seizure out of the blue on a beautifully calm Labor Day weekend in 2017 and following really an entire day of tests, originally had thought he may be dehydrated, right? And after a day of tests and scans and moving from this hospital to taking an ambulance to that place, you know, around 11 p.m. that night, I heard doctors in the hallway talking about a mass. And so I kind of went out in the hallway. Obviously it had been a super long day for both of us, but especially my brother, you know, having to be the one that sit through all of these different things and kind of pressed them on it. And that's when, you know, I, for the first time learned that my brother had a brain tumor, right?

I never heard the word mass, tumor. Those things were not things I was ready to hear at 25 and my brother was 28. And so that kind of was how things started and had to make the call to my mom and dad and to my sister. Obviously Labor Day, everyone was kind of doing different things. And, you know, that realization is where our world first started to flip upside down and at that moment you say, okay, it's not gonna be cancerous, right? Everything's gonna be fine, it's got a cyst around it, it looks controlled. Let's go in for a surgery, get this thing removed, and then we move from there. And obviously following sequencing and testing from his resection, that's when we realized it was a glioblastoma multiform grade four brain tumor, primary, malignant, again, things we did not know and weren't ready for at that time in 2017.

But we were originally told not to Google it, which is a fascinating thing to be told. And we did the exact opposite, obviously, and wanted to learn everything we could to do everything we could to fight this thing together. And that's kind of where our story starts in the GBM world. Our world was actually truly flipped upside down with this diagnosis.

Bri (03:15)
I imagine that dynamic of being a sibling has a different impact, especially someone older than you. What was your relationship like at this point?

Colin Gerner (03:26)
My brother was three years older than me and my best friend. I followed him to school at the University at Albany. He stayed for his master's and we lived together for that year. He then left for New York City. I went into the same major of accounting and finance. I followed him to the Big Four. He went to EY. I went to the direct competitor of PwC.

We were close, always were. He was a mentor, he paved the path for me, showed me what hard work could result in and I saw the fruits of his labor and what he was starting to accomplish and I wanted the same thing. So, followed suit, moved to New York City once I graduated and, you know, Sundays we'd go watch the game and banter and have a beer. We were young professionals in New York. We were going to Jets and Dolphins games and Knicks games, Rangers games. Doing what just young kids do in the city.

All of a sudden you are getting told that that same guy that you have so much ahead of you and so much to experience and enjoy has been given 10 to 15 months. That's not a conversation anyone expect to have, let alone when the day before that seizure, there was nothing outwardly wrong. There was no moment that you would have thought something was going on until he had that seizure.

Sometimes you read or see like, this really brought our family together. We were already so close. Obviously we became even closer because we had to really be an operating unit as a family of five through all of this.

One of the biggest pieces my brother really wanted to get clear throughout this is like, I'm the same guy. And that was his way of battling this and probably protecting other people as well. He didn't want to sit and have a pity party. He wanted to go to the game, just like he would have done before that seizure, before this diagnosis. And that's kind of the way he, he always lived his life.

Bri (05:13)
And so at what point does this seed of an idea of StacheStrong come into your all's mind? Was it your idea, his idea, both?

Colin Gerner (05:22)
My brother shaved his light beard down into a mustache for surgery. He just wanted to keep the mood light and have a laugh with the mustache. And it was like, I'm not going back to work anytime soon. So let's have fun with this, right?

My dad and I just kind of followed suit in solidarity. What else could we even do at that point than just be fully aligned in every way possible and there's one of those things that people just started to take notice that we had mustaches and, you know, they started to grow a mustache and send a picture thinking about you. Go GJ, whatever.

And I coined this fight as being StacheStong. I was like, look what people are doing rallying around you, man. Like you're loved, right? We have an incredible, we're fortunate in the grand scheme of things that have a community and people behind us in this way. And so, it was just a mantra really what we… We weren’t like, let's start a charity. Let's raise money for research. It really was just a mantra that we ran with throughout his radiation and chemo. As his hair fell out, his mustache wasn't touched and it was kind of like a sign of resiliency and strength.

A few months in, I started to kind of just like therapeutically write about his story, what we were going through. It was just helping me. It wasn't anything public. It was just really on a shared document with no one.

I started to ask our family and different people to share their viewpoint, you know, because obviously my viewpoint was just singular. And so started to gather everyone's thoughts and whatnot and sat down with my brother and was like, hey listen, I've kind of built this website of StacheStrong. We don't have to talk about this. We don't have to do it. It's helped me. But just kind of wanted to get your thoughts on this.

I'll never forget it. We're sitting on the couch and in my apartment in Long Island City and he's like, heck yeah, we're doing this. We got to help people less fortunate than me because at this point he wasn't showing symptoms, right? There was no issue post surgery for really his first 13 months. Especially only a few months in like he was running sub eight minute miles, golfing, going to work, taking the subway like if we didn't shave his head and use Optune, you would not have known he had a single deficit.

With his kind of push, we we launched things in March of 2018. Started a social media account, got registered as a charity, got a little board together, just kind of like running by the seat of our pants because really my goal, selfishly, I thought we could save my brother's life and I thought we could move the needle fast enough, effectively enough, and efficiently enough that if we raise enough funds, maybe we find something that helps him. My sole focus and drive in the beginning was to hopefully give us more tomorrow's.

So we started StacheStrong and the two of us would speak at events and speak at different conferences, talk to surgeons, oncologists, caregivers, you name it. These two young brothers in New York City trying to make a difference.

I think it goes back to that, don't Google this. That really stuck out to us as like, that's not going to change anything. We were solution guys. We were fill the gap guys. And that was clearly a gap. That was our prerogative to do something differently, go about it in a different way. Our brand is more fun and more connecting. We're doing it in a different way. And that was what we did early days, just kind of raise funds, hold, hold events, have excuses for people to see my brother and come out in support. And we quickly realized that we had something because of the overwhelming support that we had.

Bri (08:35)
As you're sharing all of that, something that keeps popping in my head. I don't know how this will land with you but trendsetters, not only on the mustache front, I mean, mustaches nowadays are kind of like the cool thing to have now back in 2017, not so much. So it was kind of like you all are ahead of your time.

But then also looking at what you all have accomplished since you just started. An organization your all’s size would thrilled to have even half of the results that you all have gotten. You've done a lot of fundraising. What's the number look like today for how much you raised?

Colin Gerner (09:07)
It blows my mind even sometimes, but as of early 2026, we’ve funded over $7 million of brain cancer research across more than 65 individual grants in partnership with over 40 different medical and research institutions. That's progress. That's hope. That's inspiration and that’s where we are today.

You zoom back to when we first started. I mean, we did $50,000 in year one and we were ecstatic. We've learned a lot and we've grown a lot.

After 25 months, I lost my brother to this disease, but it's pretty crazy to take a step back and look what we've been able to do. And it's because of sharing my brother's story in a vulnerable way on the good and bad days because that resonated with our community and that immediately made them realize like we get you. Right? We were walking this walk while starting StacheStrong.

I've seen things that I wish I didn't. And we've gone through things that I wish we didn't. But we've also had good days. I think in the storytelling and in early days, especially living vulnerably, sharing that, having fun throughout it.

My brother was unique and that's the only reason this thing exists because he didn't have to go about this with a smile on his face. He didn't have to go about it in a resilient and quite frankly beyond determined way, but he did. And because he did that gave birth to who we are within our DNA and fabric as an organization. And that's now who we are across the globe. People are part of what we call the StacheStrong family.

It was 10,000 at our first event. It's millions now and it's thousands of families across the globe. They have their own take on StacheStrong. They have their own way that they live StacheStrong. And that's an incredible thing to watch.

Bri (10:48)
Why start your own organization instead of fundraising for something else?

Colin Gerner (10:53)
It's a great, great question. I mean, transparently, we just didn't find like our fit immediately in 2017. And a lot has changed. You look at 2017 versus 2026. I mean, it's a different world.

There's incredible orgs that were obviously around in 2017 when my brother was diagnosed and we talked to them and we got to know. And now we partner and collaborate with so many of them. We just didn't find that for us.

We knew we wanted to specifically support brain cancer research. We knew we had a unique story. We thought we just had a unique young mindset, especially where a lot of the stories we were reading transparently were our parents' age at the time. The same need is for a 20 year old as a 60 year old as far as research goes, but didn't connect in the same way with different things that were going on. We were two 20 year olds living in New York City, right? We kind of saw that as a gap and something that we could provide for others. And I always say I started StacheStrong to save my brother's life and I continue it to save the next set of brother's lives. I don't know when that's going to be and we fight every day to get there. But that's why we're doing what we're doing.

I don't care who funds the breakthrough. I don't care how we get there, we need to get there. As we started this, we saw orgs necessarily weren't working together in the way that I would like to see. I wanted to see more collaboration, more co-funding, more working together, knowledge sharing. And quite frankly, we've seen a ton more of that in the past eight years. And again, it's just the tip of the iceberg.

We kind of try to continue to harness, support and work with other organizations because we're all stronger together. Again, I think the more we work together, the closer and more, more efficiently, we get one step closer to whether it's extended life, quality of life, or eventual cure. We're only doing that together.

Bri (12:30)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. How are you connecting with these institutions and scientists?

Colin Gerner (12:36)
We currently have a medical advisory board of 14 leading neuro-oncologist surgeons, chief scientific officers that are reviewing proposals. So we go about it one of two ways. One, the natural way is that a proposal comes in, our advisory board reviews it on the NIH scaling system, take kind of the aggregate scores and make a decision on a funding or not funding basis. That's pretty normal in the sense of how a resource org will operate through like a peer review board and whatnot.

The other area and the area that I think makes us really unique is that my brother and I were in consulting and tax professional services at two of the biggest firms in the globe and when we didn't know the answer, we called our colleague who might know that. We kind of took that consulting mindset to this space and we do a lot of co-funding as well. So early on a conversation with a big brain tumor organization saw that a highly graded grant focused on glioblastoma was on the shelf for over a year because it just didn't fit within the budget.

To be told that a highly graded grant isn't getting funded when you're sitting next to your brother who's again given 10 to 15 months to live is just unacceptable. So we looked at that as okay, you don't have 50,000 to fund this. Do you have 25 because we can be the other half of that?

And so we started to attack funding in this way where really robust and mature organizations with strong infrastructures that were reviewing hundreds of grants in a given year and bifurcating them into different buckets based on tumor type and based on phase zero, phase one versus drug development versus quality of life, whatever it looked like. When you have these highest graded grants let's co-fund these.

In our early years when we were only raising, 100 to 200,000 in a year, we could fund double that.

Bri (14:17)
Just like you said, better together. 100%. When you think about the future of StacheStrong specifically, what's that next level of impact that you want to have?

Colin Gerner (14:27)
Yeah, I mean, it changes every day, because I'm just never satisfied. I just know what families are going through and we need more dollars, more resources, more advancements. I've been on the other side, praying at night to get there.

So for us, it's just like continue to scale, continue to grow. You look at our eight years. I mean, the first two years my brother was sick and we were handling chemo, radiation, treatment, everything that goes on while starting an organization. Then what happens right after he passes? COVID starts. And so our next two years, two and a half years, in-person events aren't really happening. We have to be nimble and modify ourselves even more. Like our first four to five years were literally chaos. It taught us how to exist and thrive in chaos. And it taught us how to be nimble and how to be not reactive, but thinking through things, what might come and how we can get there.

Fast forward to today, we closed up our 2025 books recently and nearly a million and a half dollars in the door. That's a major year and something that if you ask us in year one to say, Hey, you're going to do this before you reach your eighth year as an organization and be like,

Okay, well, how are going to get there? But we're there.

And so now the goal is how do we turn that million and half to two to three? We're looking at and working with different groups. It's been no staff for eight years. If we want to do what we need to do, we need to bring people on, we need to grow. And so we have people helping right now to get to that point, because we're ready for it.

And guess what? If we can raise $3 million in a given year, we're going to double what we're doing now. We're going to do 10x what we did three years ago. And that's the goal for me is to continue putting everything forward that we can for that next family, for that next set of brothers who's sitting there in the doctor's office getting told they have Glioblastoma, Astrocytoma, for the kid who has DIPG We're pushing this and scaling this for those individuals.

So that's where we're going. It's an exciting time. We're evolving every single day. We're taking on more commitments. We're taking on more events. Our marathon program's a huge example. We started this organization. I got a lottery bib by chance for the New York City Marathon. We use it as a platform to fundraise in year one of StacheStrong.

This year we have over 150 bibs at major marathons across the globe. And those are huge ways to tell stories. To bring people out of grief that may want to be running for a loved one who's passed, to give someone purpose who's currently fighting brain cancer. That's just one example of what we're doing.

Bri (16:52)
I hear so much, not just passion, but determination in everything that you're sharing. If we had a third microphone to welcome your brother, G.J., into this conversation, what do you think he would want to say?

Colin Gerner (17:07)
He'd do exactly what he always did. He controlled exactly what he controlled and he pushed on even in days where he didn't need to. I think he'd urge everyone to continue to show up and do your part. There's days where it's not easy, but I'm saying like just showing up, we can all do that. And he did that every day throughout his diagnosis.

They told us, it's probably gonna be a couple hours and he gave us three plus days and he wasn't speaking and he was just breathing. And it was a moment where it's like, Hey man, just let go. It's okay. We got it from here.

You try to make them comfortable. You try to make it so they know that you're still there, even though they can't communicate.

But that's who my brother was. He just kept fighting. Even as it fully took over his brain in the final MRI, I mean, it was everywhere and he didn't stop. And I think that's what he would tell anyone. Don't stop. Fight for one more tomorrow for yourself, for your family, for your friends, for your loved ones, and keep fighting for the next person who's gonna come through with this disease. I'd see a huge smile if he could share that we had funded over $7 million, because I remember the smile when we raised 10,000. And that smile never left him, that fight never left him, and I think those are the things that he'd make sure others could hear.

Bri (18:12)
Wow. Wow, wow, Colin, how has all of this rewired your mind?

Colin Gerner (18:16)
It's one of those things I obviously I talk about every day. I push forward what we're doing every day. For me, this is something that has obviously changed every part of me. My brother wasn't at my wedding. My brother won't be at my sister's wedding one day. We missed his 35th birthday. He'll miss mine this year. There's so many things that you just miss and so many firsts that don't occur, but as he was going through it, he kept saying, we can only control what we can control. So when I'm having a bad day or when I don't think we can keep doing this, you rewire your mind, just like he did.

Two surgeries, two different years of chemo, radiation, an entire year after bilateral surgery of PT, OT, you name it, speech therapy. He just didn't stop. And he rewired his mind every day to show other people he was okay. That's what he did his entire diagnosis. Everything was stacked up against him. Even that recurrence, he had 100 plus mutations. He didn't say, well, this is it, time to roll over.

If he didn't do that, how do we stop? How do we not continue. We're evolving and rewiring every day because this thing doesn't stop. And if you stop, it wins. I always say my brother didn't lose. We didn't lose my brother. He took this thing down with him. Even his last three days on this earth, he made sure to remind all of us that you can always go one more day and always have one more breath. And I don't think I've even ever shared that in the years of things I've done.

I was watching an old video this morning that popped up. He wasn't in a good place and he's still smiling. And for me, that's how we rewire our minds. That's how we rewire this entire philanthropic space. Keep building, keep improving, keep fighting because we need to.

Bri (19:52)
Yeah, I love that. If you stop, it wins. Like, wow, that one, that one hit me.

Colin Gerner (19:58)
We have a four piece documentary and he was involved in the first three, and the fourth is kind of like a years after look at it. And at the end it, I can hear him as clear as day saying it when we recorded it, he said, I'm gonna kick cancer's ass. And he did that every single day because he wasn't losing and that is a very unique mindset to have. He just kept fighting to win and he did win. Look how he's won. $7 million funded, 65 grants plus funded, 40 institutions funded. Outside of those numbers, thousands of families who have felt at least one ounce of support, hope or inspiration because of the way he went about it. That's how you win every single day against this disease. And that's why we keep fighting for more tomorrow's.

Bri (20:41)
If other people want to win with you, they want to get more involved with StacheStrong, what does that look like and where do they find you?

Colin Gerner (20:49)
Yeah, we have several events throughout the year. The easiest way to find everything about us is at stachestrong.org. That's S-T-A-C-H-E strong.org. We've got an incredible website of storytelling and our documentary and our event lineup and the impact we've had and different media pieces we've done, right? It's just a really good look at who we are as a family, as an organization, especially as we've really evolved and grown into a major org

Ssequentially throughout the year, the first week of May is always our golf tournament in Jupiter, Florida. May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, so every day during May, we share stories from those across this community that are facing or have faced a brain cancer diagnosis. We have done that every year since 2018 when we started. So we have shared hundreds of stories. that's always a great way to share your story and picture through our online forum to collect those. Really powerful month of showing that even amidst a similar diagnosis, everyone's going about it differently. And there's so much unique stories and it's great to learn and understand so many people through that.

We have a campaign in the spring into summer called Brew StacheStrong, basically a collaboration with hundreds of breweries to date across the country where they will commit a batch size to StacheStrong raise a dollar per beer sold.

We then flow into our fall period where our 5K every year, which my brother ran the inaugural StacheStrong 5K sub eight minute miles, took off his Optune device and ran past everyone.

Bri (22:20)
Wow.

Colin Gerner (22:26)
That was year one in mid September. As fate would have it, he passed on September 17th in 2019. His funeral was on the day of the second annual. And so obviously we weren't there, but hundreds got together and paid their respects in that way. That is now in our ninth annual year, The unique thing about this is it started as a thing in our hometown and now we've had annually over 1500 people are involved virtually across the country just getting your community together and running or walking for your loved one.

We have our New York City fundraiser, which kicked off our organization in 2018. As we were growing these gnarly mustaches off, we actually had an event where we auctioned off, shaving them off. We had a silent auction, just kind of like a fun way for people in New York City to see my brother for the first time since going through treatment. That is now in its ninth year as well. A couple hundred people every year. And we also have marathons. This year we have over 50 bibs for the New York City Marathon, which is obviously one of the premier road races in the world. We're in the Rome, Dublin, Copenhagen, Sydney, Berlin, Tokyo, Boston, Chicago marathons. Hopefully London soon. If anyone's listening that has a London connection, we'd love to figure that one out. But we have marathons across the globe that people apply for through our website, share their story and then run and fundraise for us.

So a litany of ways just from fundraising perspective. And being involved, volunteering at different events. We obviously always welcome anyone from a skills-based volunteering perspective, someone who can help connect dots. A lot of what we've accomplished over the years is from a supporter putting their neck out there and introducing us to this person or that person or this company. Again, a lot of what has occurred has been through those relationships and connection points. You don't get to a million and a half dollars raised in any given year without an incredible, incredible community of individuals, of corporate sponsors, of groups just coming together. So really a ton of ways to get involved. It all starts with our website and following us on social media at StacheStrong on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn. We'd love to have you part of the StacheStrong family.

Bri (24:31)
Amazing. Well, Colin, thank you so much for making time for this conversation. And I got to know, how is the mustache today? Are you still rocking it? Is it shaved?

Colin Gerner (24:41)
It comes and goes. We are lucky that our family could grow it quickly at times. So it is currently here because I am training for the Boston Marathon, I'm currently number three across the globe as an individual fundraiser. And we have a goal of over 200,000, which we’re fastly approaching. So the mustache is in full prep mode for that big moment for us. And it's really a full circle moment for us.

My brother jumped in the last six miles with me over a year into his diagnosis and actually had his recurrence and surgery two weeks after that race. To now be running Boston in his memory eight years later and being one of the top fundraisers across globe is pretty humbling. So the mustache will certainly be out in full force there coming up.

Bri (25:28)
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Colin. I appreciate you taking the time and I will include all of the information you just shared in the show notes for listeners as well.

Colin Gerner (25:36)
Perfect, great to meet you. I appreciate what you're doing. Again, if one person hears my story, here's the next episode's story, that's one more person who has another contact, another connection point, and hopefully another source of inspiration. So thank you for all you do. I think this is a really incredible initiative to hopefully help everyone who's listening.

Bri (25:54)
Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

Bri (26:01)
Thank you for being part of the Rewired Minds community. Full show notes, resources, and a transcript for today's conversation can be found at rewired-minds.com. If you or someone you know has a brain tumor story to share, I'd love to hear from you. Visit rewired-minds.com to learn more about collaborating on a future episode. This podcast is a one woman labor of love. It's a true honor to bring it to your ears and facilitate connection among the brain tumor community. If this episode resonated with you, please rate, review, and share with someone who might need to hear it.

Bri (26:33)
The stories shared in this podcast are personal accounts from the brain tumor community for informational and awareness purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. Always consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding your specific situation.