Julienne R.P. Duenas gets business honor

Julienne R. P. Duenas is the 2008 First Hawaiian Bank Guam Business Businesswoman of the Year.

Julienne Rose Perez Duenas is a physical therapist and the owner and clinical director of SOAR (Sports, Orthopedic and Active Rehabilitation Inc.).

Duenas began her work with SOAR in 1999 before taking on sole ownership of the clinic in 2008.

In her spare time, Duenas is a coach with the Shell Guam Youth Drug-Free Basketball League. She also volunteers her time, as a physical therapist, for the Guam Track and Field Association. On weekends and after clinic hours, Duenas provides her service, at no charge, to local athletes who do not have medical insurance.

Duenas takes pride in being a physical therapist as she has the “pleasure of evaluating and treating patients that suffer from a variety of disabling conditions and assisting them with pain management through a variety of modalities, exercises and lifestyle changes.”

She impacts many lives, teaching patients how to better take care of themselves.

From 2004 to 2006 she took up a part-time position at the Guam Memorial Hospital as staff physical therapist on weekends and holidays for inpatients. At GMH she also evaluated and treated inpatients, providing acute orthopedic post-surgical care, treatments for acute cerebral vascular accidents and wound care, among others, she said.

For 10 years, from 1989 to 1999, she worked with the FHP/PacifiCare team as an inpatient physical therapist at one of FHP/PacificCare’s hospitals in California, before being transferred to Guam as a physical therapy supervisor.

Before that she was a staff physical therapist at the Providence Memorial Hospital in El Paso, Texas, from 1988 to 1989, where she assisted adult and pediatric orthopedic patients.

Duenas is married to Julito Tingson Jr. and the couple has two sons: Jordan Michael, 13; and Joshua Edward, 9. She is the eighth child of Jose and Rosario Duenas.

She joins Katherine C. Sgro, 2006; and Christine Won Pat Baleto, 2007.

The name of the winner is held secret until the annual gala. The First Hawaiian Bank Guam Business Businesswoman of the Year program raises funds for scholarships for the University of Guam, Guam Community College, and the College of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Duenas received the Maga’haga award in front of more than 300 people in a packed ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Guam.[B][I] (PR)[/I][/B]