Melanoma connection to HP scandal

If you watch the evening news at all you've most likely heard about the scandal surrounding Hewlett-Packard's possible illegal probe into media leaks at the company. One of the results of the scandal is that the person at the center of it, HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, has decided to step down next January. What you probably don't know about Patricia Dunn is that she is a melanoma survivor. She actually stepped down from a CEO position in 2002 to battle breast cancer and melanoma and recently underwent surgery to treat ovarian cancer.

Patricia Dunn was recently honored by being entered into the Bay Area Council's hall of fame.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

The timing of the council's event juxtaposes two distinct portraits of Dunn that are hard for some to reconcile. She has become the face of the recent HP scandal, the driving force behind an investigation into boardroom leaks to the press that has created a furor.

But the hall-of-fame honor is one she shares with local luminaries such as the deceased founders of HP, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Gordon Moore of Intel and filmmaker George Lucas.

Friends and former colleagues say Dunn has been greatly misunderstood as the HP investigation has surfaced. To them, she is a hardworking business star, the rare woman in the male-dominated world of corporate finance.

That Dunn still plans to attend the event -- and speak publicly to a crowd of business elite -- is testament to her fighting spirit, say friends and colleagues. She has survived three kinds of cancer -- breast, melanoma and more recently ovarian -- in the past few years.

...

This was during a period of Dunn's life when she already faced another major challenge: In the past five years, she has struggled against breast cancer and melanoma. In 2004, she was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. This year, she experienced a recurrence of that cancer and had surgery. Friends say she has recovered.

``She is a fighter,'' Martinez said.

Dunn is married to William Jahnke, a former president of Wells Fargo Investment Advisors. The couple owns a shiraz winery in Australia, a home in Hawaii and property in Marin and Contra Costa counties.