Peter Nordqvist

What is your role in Corience? How did you start?

I am a member of the Corience core group. My job basically consists in talking, thinking, and developing ideas. I believe it is crucial to have open-minded discussions in a European project such as Corience, because of the many different perspectives and approaches that are involved.

What is your personal motivation to work for Corience?

I am both the sibling and the parent of a CHD child. My younger brother Lars was born with a heart disease in the 1960s. He died in surgery when he was 14; the people who performed the procedure were not experienced enough to perform it successfully. In 1988 my daughter Isa was born with the same heart defect as Lars. She was operated on when she was only four days old, and has been pretty healthy since then, though she uses a wheelchair. Today, she reads Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg. She is very independent, travelling to meetings of the National Students’ Council, etc.

When did you decide to start working for a CHD organisation?

Working for Corience is the result of a long development. I am the marketing manager for the Swedish parent umbrella organisation. We try to raise awareness for congenital heart diseases, their implications, and the people who are afflicted. I was very inspired by the work that was done in Norway, and over the years, my German and Norwegian colleagues and I often talked about cooperating in a joint project. I have a dream that the Corience website is just the beginning. There’s so much we can do. We could build holiday camps throughout Europe. That would give kids with CHD a great chance to travel and help parents feel comfortable letting their children go off on their own.

Are there any unusual aspects about your life you’d like to share?

I love to go lobster fishing. In Sweden, lobster season traditionally begins the Monday after September 20. You pack your boat with fishing equipment and lots of salted mackerel, then you go out and get your lobster traps and the mackerel bait in the water. You wait over night, and the next morning you check your traps, empty them and set them up again. You go on like that until you run out of mackerel, then you take your lobster home and have lots of dinner parties – but that’s a different story.