Greater Washington Region Heart Walk Preview

Heart disease, personal for thousands of families across the country and right here in the DMV. And this Saturday, people come together on the National Mall to take steps towards better heart health. The 2026 Greater Washington Region Heart Walk will bring together survivors, families, and local businesses hoping to raise awareness and support in the fight against heart disease. Steve Hull, president of Leidos Digital and this year's Heart Walk chair, joining us here and also walking for a very personal reason. Steve, thank you for joining us. Tell us about that. Yeah. Hi, Marina. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So I grew up in a family that has dealt with heart disease for many years. I had a grandfather that passed away due to heart disease. My father actually had a widow maker heart attack when he was younger than I am today. And I've dealt with blood pressure issues throughout my life a little bit too. So, you know, it's very near and dear to my heart that we do all the things that we can to educate people, to help them be an assistant for those that are in an emergency. Heart health, heart disease, you talk about genetics, and there's also things that we can do to modify how we help our heart, right, to keep it going, to keep it healthy. What are we hoping to tell people? I know that companies like the one you work for, you know, they also help their employees. Like, make sure you get out there, step, walk, make those steps, 10,000 steps a day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Here at Leidos, we take all of our employees' health very seriously. So we have AEDs, of course, on all the floors. We train people how to use them, steps, personal fitness. We have health goals, you know, challenges every month through health apps that we have. So, yes, here at Leidos and I think across this region, heart health is very important to everyone. And as you mentioned, steps aren't that hard to do. And certainly when the weather is, as was mentioned before the break, it's a great. Great time to get out and get those steps in. Yeah, it's going to be beautiful weather there hopefully on Saturday. And you can see just how big and full the crowd is there on the National Mall. Tell us about the route, what time you guys are gathering, and what this looks like come Saturday. Yeah, sure. So the route, it'll be right next to the monument. We have a one-mile and a three-mile route. So for those that don't want to do the full three miles, you can do one mile. Thank you. Expect thousands of people, families, plenty of dogs. There'll be a pet. A parade, there'll be a kid's zone, lots of hands-only CPR training, so lots of things. And as you can see from the pictures, we like to get everybody energized. Yeah, you've got to get active. And I know there's a survivor's lane there that is incredibly near and dear to your heart as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it truly is all about the survivors and who doesn't have a family member or someone that they, they know that hasn't been affected by this. Uh, we have employees, I have someone in my group whose daughter kept him alive for 10 minutes until the paramedics were able to arrive. People walking, you know, at the event, but also just around every day. That have been saved because someone knew how to do CPR. We want to continue to pass that along so that we have more of those stories. And I think that's what's incredible about this walk, too, is that you all are going to have certain areas there where if you, you know, haven't learned how to do CPR or haven't seen what it looks like, this is the opportunity to learn because you never know when you could be tasked to help someone and help save their life. Yeah. A big shout out to the American Heart Association. They've worked with our team. They come into the communities. They've come into our business with those types of training. We've done a Zumba class and they've given CPR lessons at the Zumba class. They really do an amazing job. And at this event, so many different opportunities to learn more and to get better about the things that we need to do to keep everyone safe. Steve, thank you so much. We so appreciate it. We're wishing you the best of luck. And we should also mention that Fox 5's Sharon Regé will be your emcee down there at the National Mall. We appreciate it. Best of luck. All right. Hope to see you there. Have a great day.