They have a goofy name and a serious mission.

Team Boob Warriors will raise money and awareness for breast cancer research, treatment, prevention and education Sept. 12-14. Among the 25 members of the team, most will be walking 60 miles in the Breast Cancer 3-Day event to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund. Others have had supporting roles.

The lone male on the team, Steven Fish, explained why he’s doing the walk for the second year — in spite of the fact that last year, he got such huge blisters on his feet that he gave them names.

Fish, a software engineer at Microsoft, said he’d never been close to anyone affected by cancer, until he noticed something different about a co-worker, a software tester named Tammie Turpen.

He and Turpen had been working together about two years. When she took some time off, he thought, “She’s probably busy with her son.” But one day, Turpen, a single mom, came in with “a cool hair cut — it was a different color, straighter than before,” said Fish. When he complimented her on the new look, she admitted that her unintentional “makeover” was due to the fact that she had cancer.

Fish was stunned. “I couldn’t imagine her strength, what it took for her to shield her son from the emotions she was going through and to keep up with work. Then, right after that, a neighbor was diagnosed with cancer. … All of a sudden, it started popping out of the woodwork. I came across so many people, all of a sudden,” he said.

Turpen told Fish she was planning to do the 3-Day walk and asked him if he’d sign up. “I have a wife and two daughters and put it all into perspective. What if (breast cancer) happened to one of them? Me walking is not going to cure cancer but if my contribution can pay for someone’s treatment or a plane ticket to see a doctor, I know I’ve made a difference,” Fish explained.

“It’s powerful to see people walking in memory of someone they love,” he continued. He recalled seeing someone wearing a T-shirt with a photo of a beautiful bride, maybe 25 years old, who had lost her life to breast cancer.

“I can’t believe how a husband or father could process that,” he said.

We asked Turpen when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and how she is holding up.

“I was diagnosed right after my 31st birthday,” she said. “I’d had a lump since I was in my 20s but was told I was too young to get breast cancer.”

Then the lump grew very large and she found out that she had an advanced case of the disease. She had a mastectomy, lost her lymph nodes and followed up with chemotherapy and radiation. She’s taking Tamoxifen for the next four years and said her treatments have put her into early menopause which could cause other health problems.

Regardless, she feels lucky to be alive and she maintains a positive outlook.

She credited Dr. Kristi Harrington and the cancer team at Overlake Hospital for saving her life and said they did a lot to boost her confidence when she learned that her cancer was so agressive.

“I asked, ‘Should I go to Hawaii so I can die there like Dr. Greene did on ‘ER?’ Kristi explained it all to me, my mom and my son and assured us that I’d be okay.”

Another member of Team Boob Warriors, Yuiet Ireland, said Turpen’s illness also took her by surprise. Her son and Turpen’s son were friends at school and played basketball together.

“What an idiot I was,” said Ireland. “We were at a skating party and I said to Tammie, ‘Oh, you colored your hair!’ That’s when she told me about the cancer. I never would have known. I always had wanted to do the walk but now I had a real reason. We started out as Team Tammienator.”

Ireland later came up with the new name, Boob Warriors. We asked if the name has raised eyebrows.

“Oh, yeah,” Turpen chuckled. “A few people have said, ‘I can’t say that word at work!’”

Fish interjected, “But we want to do this every year and have a name that everyone remembers. Like, ‘Oh, look, the Boob Warriors are back!’”

They’re also trying to bring some levity to a dark subject.

“Cancer doesn’t have to kill your spirit,” Fish declared. “It’s very serious but we don’t want the walk to be a depressing thing — it’s joking, laughing and having a good time.”

Turpen agreed, “It’s a lot of fun, people cheering you on.”

The Boob Warriors have done their fundraising the old-fashioned way, mentioning their cause to friends and co-workers — and it really helps that Microsoft matches employees’ contributions, Fish added.

To learn more about Team Boob Warriors, visit http://08.the3day.org/goto/boobwarriors.