About Me

---

Over 35 years ago, I launched a career committed to helping others through clinical practice. Initially trained as a Pastoral Counselor following  completion of my Masters of Divinity in Pastoral Care and counseling, my work ultimately led me to roles working with persons with addictions and mental health issues. I quickly found that blending my love of spiritual searching with clinical care for those struggling with trauma, mental health issues and addiction was my true path and passion. As a previously licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed chemical dependency counselor following several years of clinical practice, I ultimately found my personality and gifts were drawn to management and leadership, which has been my focus in my career path. I maintain a certification in event interventions to work with those struggling with addictions and I still work directly with patients and families in the capacity of assisting them to find the treatment opportunity to best help them heal. You can learn more about my intervention services here on my website. I relish staying close to my clinical roots and find them to be the basis for my management style and coaching approach. 

 After settling into roles focused primarily in leadership as a sales and marketing executive overseeing multi-site hospitals and treatment centers across the country in several companies, I have had the privilege of working and practicing in a wide range of settings - large hospital companies, privately owned treatment centers, small start ups, harm reduction and abstinence treatment models , outpatient providers, and telemedicine providers just to name a few. This has given me an opportunity to hone my skills at assessing an organization's needs to create growth, outreach, change management, operational and clinical excellence. While doing so, it is my goal to approach everything I do with a sense of mission and value of the individual - value of  our clients and my employees and my colleagues.  Over the years I have worked in most states across the country and developed an extensive network which I bring to bear on every project I take on. My expertise has afforded me the opportunity to present at national conferences, share my insights on various podcasts, and deliver customized sales trainings across the country. Experiences like this have given me unique insights into how to build a company brand and utilize various types of media to expand your reach. Please check out my full professional bio on LinkedIn for additional detail regarding my professional history. I provide my consulting practice often in conjunction with a fulltime corporate role as well, enabling me to stay current and engaged with the healthcare industry and key players in the field. Being able to lead a team that helps those suffering from addiction and mental illness find recovery has been my passion for my entire career. However, I find that what I have learned in that field has translated seamlessly to other healthcare settings, such as Autism, Veterinary services, leadership coaching and biotech services.

I have succeeded and I have failed. As a result, I have learned what works and what does not. And I'm still learning. My background as a clinician directly informs my work as a manager of people and as a leader - being a student of people has been the hallmark of my approach to management. I operate from a service leadership model alongside my team, which has guided my approach to coaching my teams to their best selves and thus our companies' ability to drive success. Building a healthy culture sets the stage for greater accountability and higher performance. Coaching the managers on your team can bring better performance to your overall organization.  My approach is to get to know an organization to uncover it's culture, it's personality and it's existing  strengths and weaknesses in such a way that I can bring fresh eyes to an old problem, or help a new organization chart its' path to operational excellence. I will then work with you and your management team to do a needs assessment and build an individualized action plan to address your needs. Having worked in  diverse types of organizations, I am skilled in reviewing and analyzing your data, providing a thorough competitive analysis and assessing your personnel and sales or marketing structure.  From there I can  guide you to grow your sales and marketing footprint, train your sales and admissions  teams, develop accountability goals and expectations, build reporting and tracking systems to stay on top of your companies' needs while achieving your EBIDTA goals. Having had experience with other operational areas as well, including admissions and referral, working with payers and overseeing outpatient programs, I am happy to discuss how I can help with other operational areas as well. 

Along the road of my professional career, I have learned to balance (or sometimes not to balance) my other life as a wife, mother, stepmother, (and now a new grandmother)  daughter, community volunteer and not for profit board member and leader. This has taught me many things. From this place, my coaching practice was born and is a passion for me. Working with both men or women, I find we so often struggle, not only with burn out, but with the challenges of parenting in an unsafe world, balancing our career demands with our families, caring for aging parents, dealing with stress in our marriages and continuing to find satisfaction and meaning in our busy lives. Drawing on my education as a marriage and family therapist, addiction therapist, and my own struggles as an executive woman, I offer personal executive coaching based on your desired goals. As a part of my focus on the whole person my work also led me to become a certified health coach as well. It is my belief that as healthcare professionals we must tend to all areas of our own health to lead others. 

I look forward to working with you.