Chris Brewer hadn’t even finished his own cancer treatment when he started an effort to help others with the disease.

While still undergoing chemotherapy in 1996, he created the Testicular Cancer Resource Center web site, tcrc.acor.org, as a one-stop shopping information place for testicular cancer patients their families and friends. He’s also created two e-mail-based support groups for those battling testicular cancer and for cyclists who have had cancer.

Chris, age 40, would like to be able to help others avoid what he and other cancer patients went through. “If we can figure out better ways for pre-cancer detection and less toxic and invasive ways for treating those who still get the disease, then the world will truly be a better place,” he said.

As a member of the American Cancer Society speakers’ bureau, Chris has had the opportunity to share his experience with many people. Since testicular cancer is a risk primarily for young men, he teaches 10th graders at a local high school about the disease and the symptoms.

Chris has a hopeful message and his experience is an example of the power of cancer research. If he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer 15 years earlier, his chance of survival would have been a mere 20 percent. The drugs that saved his life were developed in clinical trials in the last decade or so. “I have a big debt to cancer research,” Chris said.

Chris, who is retired from the U.S. Air Force, has been training for nearly 20 hours a week and works part time at a local bike shop. He is president of his cycling club. Chris and his wife, Michelle, have four children.

Riding on the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope will give Chris an opportunity to show the public that cancer is not a so-called death sentence. “You can thrive after cancer,” he said. “I want to share the importance of the cancer community bonding together and achieving synergy, the total package.”