In 1984, Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) authored by then Congressman Al Gore of Tennessee. This piece of legislation addressed the critical shortage of deceased donor organs in the United States as well as the need for improvements in the recovery and placement of these organs. The act called for the establishment of a national organ matching system as well as the establishment of a network of private, non-profit organizations under federal contract which would be in charge of regional recovery and placement of donor organs.

Previously, in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, transplant centers coordinated their own recoveries with some programs sharing organs with each other on a regional basis.  In 1986, The Northern California Transplant Bank (NCTB) was founded to coordinate donation in hospitals on behalf of the transplant programs.

In 1987, an executive committee of high-level hospital administrators of the four major transplant centers in Northern California came together to develop an independent Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) in response to NOTA. The resulting structure became known as California Transplant Donor Network (CTDN). CTDN’s mission was based on recovering organs for transplantation while NCTB’s mission remained focused on tissue recovery.  Phyllis Weber was appointed as Executive Director of California Transplant Donor Network and in the first year recruited 15 employees whose functions were a combination of hospital education and donor management.

In the first few years, California Transplant Donor Network focused much of its energy on educating donor hospital staff regarding the process of organ donation. As the donor referral and donor management processes improved, CTDN extended its efforts towards public education and family services in a continuing effort to increase consent rates to provide more life-saving organ transplants.

In 2007, Phyllis Weber retired as Executive Director of CTDN after serving the organization for 20 years.  Cynthia Siljestrom was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in April 2008.

In 2010, CTDN expanded its operations and began recovering tissues on behalf of the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF), Tissue Banks International (TBI), and Community Tissue Services (CTS).  California Transplant Donor Network became the single point of contact for both organ and tissue recovery within their donation service area. With the combination of these recovery services, CTDN is able to increase donation rates while making the process easier for hospitals and the donor families. 

Today, CTDN is proud to be a federally designated OPO, a Donate Life Organization, an accredited member of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) and a member of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS). CTDN is dedicated to providing services to hospitals, transplant centers and the public in Northern/Central California as well as Northern Nevada.