Speakers & Faculty

Nathan Gerhard serves as the Associate Executive Director of Intellectual Disabilities Services at Keystone Human Services in Pennsylvania. With over two decades of experience in the field of Intellectual Disabilities in both Pennsylvania and Maryland, Nathan is currently concentrating on expanding the use of enabling technology and remote supports throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Since 2018, he has been spearheading the initiative to incorporate independent living technology into conventional service models beginning with two residential homes in North Central Pennsylvania. By 2024, Keystone expanded its reach to more than 130 locations, aiding over 250 people with independent living technologies embedded within their natural support systems in their service delivery models.

Becky Duncan Massey is a lifelong Knoxville native. She was elected to the General Assembly in 2011. She serves as the chairman of the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee and also serves on the Health and Welfare Committee. She retired from the Sertoma Center after serving 24 years as executive director.

Becky Duncan Massey and her husband Morton have been married since 1976, both earning bachelor’s degrees from the University of Tennessee. They are proud parents of two adult daughters, Courtney and Kristen, and granddaughter Bailey.

Jessica McCarthy is a seasoned marketing and communications leader with over 15 years of cross-sector experience spanning agency, corporate, and nonprofit environments. With a strong foundation in brand storytelling and a focus on customer engagement, she has built a career developing brands that resonate, connect, and deliver results.

Much of Jessica’s work has been concentrated in the healthcare space— from optometry and biotechnology to chronic pain and, most recently, mental health. In her current role as Director of Marketing Operations at Centerstone, she is passionate about driving efficiency, streamlining processes, and demonstrating that nonprofits with limited budgets can still create powerful, compelling work.

Jennifer Schugam is the Director of Behavioral Health at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. In this role, she is responsible for guiding the strategic vision, planning, and execution of behavioral health programs aimed at improving healthcare equity, affordability, quality, and accessibility for Carefirst members across Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Northern Virginia. With over 22 years of experience in community psychiatric services and organizational leadership, Jennifer is a dedicated advocate for mental health accessibility and quality working to further build CareFirst’s behavioral health offerings through innovative care solutions, provider partnerships, and data-driven strategies.

Jennifer’s expertise in behavioral health includes senior leadership roles in both clinical and operational settings. Before joining CareFirst, she served as the Executive Director of Feeding the People, a non-profit organization she founded that provided home-delivered meals, in-home education, and support for low-income diabetics in Baltimore. Throughout her career, Jennifer has focused on delivering care to diverse populations, including vulnerable and underserved communities in Baltimore as a mobile treatment psychiatric therapist, supporting individuals with severe, chronic mental illnesses in state psychiatric facilities, mental health courts, and home settings. At CareFirst, Jennifer drives initiatives to integrate mental health services into the company’s broader healthcare offerings, ensuring that members have access to holistic, person-centered care. Her initiatives include expanding access to preventive care and developing programs that cater to various demographics, leveraging digital tools and data analytics to improve and better connect members to care, tracking emerging behavioral health trends, and assessing program effectiveness.

Jennifer holds a Master of Social Work in Clinical Practice with Children and Families from the University of Maryland, School of Social Work, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She is a Clinical Supervisor for the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners and is a passionate advocate for destigmatizing mental health issues. She lives in Baltimore City with her human and dog children.

Kimberly Bond, MS, LMFT, brings over thirty years of experience providing behavioral health treatment in the public and community settings to the OPEN MINDS team. She currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Business Development. In this role, Ms. Bond focuses on growing the OPEN MINDS client portfolio across all nine verticals of OPEN MINDS business.

Prior to joining OPEN MINDS, Ms. Bond served concurrently as a Program Coordinator III and Clinical Manager of Adult Services and a Program Coordinator II and Clinical Manager of Recovery Services for the Ozark Guidance Center. In these roles, Ms. Bond was responsible for the administrative and clinical oversight of the adult outpatient and adult intensive mental health services on the Springdale Campus as well as the adult recovery/co-occurring services, including domestic violence and anger management treatment.

Prior to joining the Ozark Guidance Center, Ms. Bond served as the Executive Vice President of Center Point, Inc, a large substance abuse provider agency in California. In this role, Ms. Bond was responsible for the clinical and administrative supervision of all community-based programs as well as the women and children residential programs. In addition, Ms. Bond also managed budgets, interacted with funding agencies, and built positive relationships with all stakeholders. Ms. Bond was also in charge of proposal and grant writing, staff management, and training, facilities’ licensing and certifications renewals.  Additionally, she prepared and submitted monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual reports to various funders.

Previously, Ms. Bond served as the President and CEO of Mental Health Systems, Inc. Ms. Bond was very instrumental in growing the agency from $12M in annual revenue to over $100M and becoming one of the largest providers of behavioral health services in California. In this role, Bond was responsible for the strategic, clinical, financial, and administrative health of the agency, including direct supervision of Senior Executive Staff. In addition, Bond ensured contract compliance of the agency’s 125 different contracts across federal and state agencies and eight counties.

Ms. Bond received her bachelor’s degree in psychology, with honors, and her master’s degree in counseling education from San Diego State University. She is licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist in both California and Arkansas.

Dee DeWitt has extensive experience as a consultant and corporate leader in the healthcare field. Mr. DeWitt brings over 28 years of experience in healthcare finance and operations, M&A, use of technology, strategic planning, and change management in healthcare organizations to OPEN MINDS as a Senior Associate.

Previously, Mr. DeWitt was the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Momentum for Health, a CARF-accredited non-profit behavioral health organization providing services to individuals with a diagnosed serious mental illness (SMI) and/or substance abuse disorder, in San Jose, California. During his tenure, Mr. DeWitt increased outpatient productivity by 25% and contributed to growing revenues from $55 million to a projected $71+ million for the fiscal year of 2023. Mr. DeWitt also oversaw Momentum ‘s pilot with Santa Clara County’s transition to Netsmart Provider Connect and led a successful grant award and implementation of a multi-year paid intern program in partnership with Santa Clara University, San Jose University, and Palo Alto University.

Mr. DeWitt was also the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Veridian Financial Group, a strategic consulting firm specializing in performing long-term, onsite C-level and Director roles, evaluating and implementing financial strategies, strategic operational planning, and development strategies for companies that are poised for significant growth, change, or require turnaround attention, in San Jose, California. During his time at Veridian Financial Group, Mr. DeWitt focused primarily on healthcare, finance, technology, and private equity and coordinated licensing, compliance, and external audits for 42 state licenses, including managed care organizations, managed care plans, Medicare, Medicaid, and service provider organizations.

In addition, Mr. DeWitt served as Chief Financial Officer and a Consultant in Strategic Planning and Finance for Home Recovery – Home Aid, Inc., a private equity-backed, for-profit company that provides personal care and skilled care in 35 locations and in-home care throughout Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. During his time there, Mr. DeWitt was a member of the company’s executive management team, audit team, and License and Compliance team. Mr. DeWitt also served as Chief Financial Officer of Professional Healthcare Resources, Inc., a for-profit holding company comprised of five home health companies, four hospice companies, and two private duty/personal care companies. Mr. DeWitt has also been the Chief Financial and Technology Officer for The Filson, a nationally renowned non-profit archive and research institute, and Director of Strategic Development for Signature Healthcare, LLC, a national private equity-backed for-profit, long-term care company operating over 180 facilities, with 18,000 employees, and over $1 billion in revenues.

Mr. DeWitt also held the positions of Deputy Director of Behavioral Health at the County of Ventura, CA Behavioral Health Services Department, and Director of Finance and Management Services of the Southeastern Arizona Behavioral Health Services (SEABHS), a joint commissioned accredited non-profit.

Mr. DeWitt graduated from the University of Louisville, Kentucky with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics and a Master’s in Political Science with a concentration in Economics and Public Policy.

Andrea Mander, MAS-PHM, brings over ten years of population health management and transformational leadership experience to the OPEN MINDS team. She has extensive experience supporting health system transformation, creating and implementing innovative programs for population health. Ms. Mander currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Market Intelligence at OPEN MINDS. In this role, she oversees the market intelligence team and complete suite of OPEN MINDS market intelligence products and services.

Prior to joining OPEN MINDS, Ms. Mander simultaneously served as a Consultant at Be Well OC and Housing For Health OC providing operational, policy, and data strategy support and guidance on how it aligned across initiatives. She held several additional roles during this time. She served as a Senior Consultant – Behavioral Health System Transformation, she secured commercial payer contracting for provider network development activities. She also supported strategic planning activities focused on achieving six result areas and collective impact goals. Ms. Mander advised on operational best practices as a key informant for systems change. She served as a Senior Project Manager for ACEs Aware Implementation Grantee: Orange County Trauma-Informed Network of Care ($3.2M). In this role, she successfully met all workplan objectives and deliverables improving community resilience through screening, treatment, and healing of adverse childhood experiences. She also participated in project planning and strategic implementation including a closed-loop referral platform, equity and inclusion road mapping, and hosting a community-healing educational series. She also worked on the CalAIM Community Supports and Housing Navigation project. Ms. Mander established operations, policies, and procedures for Medi-Cal billing for collective a of housing and homeless services providers under the CalAIM initiative. She provided data reporting and visualization strategies and collaborated with referral and case management system technology vendors to improve user experience and reporting capabilities. She also served as a thought leader and MCP liaison (CalOptima).

Prior to the consulting roles, Ms. Mander served as the Director of Innovation Strategies & Business Relationships at Integrated Behavioral Health. She secured C-Suite support in all business development and merger and acquisition activities from pitch strategy to onboarding. She led the implementation of four acquisitions, onboarding all new customers, third-party vendors, and business partner relationships. She also led the product innovation teams collaborating with senior clinical staff and IT on R&D and implementation of new employer/employee wellbeing programs and services, including internal protocols, workflows, and communication and promotional materials.

Ms. Mander received her Master of Applied Science: Population Health Management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received her Bachelor of Science: Health Management from Walden University.

Joseph P. Naughton-Travers, EdM, Senior Associate, has more than 30 years of experience in the health and human service field. In this tenure as senior associate with OPEN MINDS since 1998, he has served as lead of dozens of client initiatives, served as editor of OPEN MINDS publications, and is the author of many groundbreaking articles and presentations.

Mr. Naughton-Travers brings to OPEN MINDS a broad range of experiences in private and public sector delivery of behavioral health and social services. He started his career as a behavioral health clinician, working in both child welfare and community mental health clinic settings. Subsequently, Mr. Naughton-Travers held a senior business operations management position for a psychiatric hospital system and its community mental health clinics.  Later, he was vice president of a firm specializing in information systems and billing and receivables management for community-based mental health programs.

Since joining OPEN MINDS, Mr. Naughton-Travers has developed business solutions for provider and professional organizations, state and county government, technology companies, and venture capital firms. His primary areas of expertise include strategic planning and metrics-based management, electronic health record (EHR) and technology selection and implementation, operations improvement, and corporate compliance. For the past decade, over half his consulting practice has focused on aiding organizations in technology selection and implementation, including all aspects of strategic technology planning, functional specifications development, request for proposal development, vendor selection, and contracting.

He has written numerous articles, including “Winning the Human Resource Wars: Tried, True and New Strategies for Behavioral Health and Social Service Organizations,” “Five Pillars of Management Competency,” “Data Driven Decision Making: Moving to an Organizational Measurement Culture,” “Survival of the Smartest: What is Your Organization’s Information Literacy IQ?,” and “Strategic Human Resource Management: Aligning Compensation with Employee Performance and Organizational Strategy.” Mr. Naughton-Travers is also a nationally recognized speaker, having conducted hundreds of executive and professional executive training events around the nation.

Mr. Naughton-Travers received his Bachelor’s degree from Miami University of Ohio and his Masters’ of Education in Counseling Psychology from Boston University.

Monica E. Oss, M.S. is the founder of OPEN MINDS and serves as its chief executive officer, executive editor of its publications and websites, and executive lead of its consulting engagements. For the past three decades, Ms. Oss has led the OPEN MINDS team and its research on health and human service market trends and its national consulting practice.  She is well known for her numerous books and articles focused on the strategic and marketing implications of the evolving health and human service field – and its focus on the verticals of the field serving consumers with chronic conditions and complex support needs.

Ms. Oss has extensive experience in developing and implementing growth strategies for a wide array of organizations in the field. She has expertise in industry trend analysis, reimbursement and rate setting, and creating actionable plans for market success. In her role, she has led numerous engagements with state Medicaid plans, county governments, private insurers, and health plans, service provider organizations, technology vendors, neurotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations, and investment banking firms – with a focus on the implications of financing changes on delivery system design.

Prior to founding OPEN MINDS, Ms. Oss served as an executive with a nationally managed behavioral health organization, responsible for market development, actuarial analysis, and capitation-based rate setting. She also held a position as vice president of the U.S. risk management and underwriting division of an international insurance company.

Ms. Oss has been the keynote speaker at the conferences of dozens of national associations and has been published in a wide range of professional journals and trade publications. She has provided Congressional and state legislative testimony on issues as diverse as the financial impact of parity and payer medication access policies.

Ms. Oss has led a range of industry research and consultation initiatives, serving as principal investigator on research projects that include the examination of national managed care enrollment and service patterns, development of provider rate structures for government entities, creation of return-on-investment models for technology investments; design of performance-based compensation models within public and private health plans; and analysis of the economic impact of changes in benefit design, adoption of evidence-based practices, and new technologies.