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Biographies
This document is a listing of the core consulting and technical staff working with the NewSof Group.
Dan Newton, PhD, dan@newsof.com, is the President of The NewSof Group. He is a leading expert in systems thinking and multi-media intervention to reduce health care costs and improve health outcomes. He excels in delivering healthcare re-engineering services and interactive solutions to clients using Internet and communications technologies. Dr. Newton was also previously a team leader within Monsanto responsible for the initial concept development of Lexant, prior to becoming a vice president and corporate officer for Lexant, a technology-centered population health services company that delivered behaviorally based disease and lifestyle management interventions. Lexant focused its services primarily on Fortune 500 corporations and large healthcare delivery systems.
Prior to joining Lexant, Dr. Newton was a senior consultant with The Benfield Group, a national healthcare consulting firm specializing in the strategic analysis, development, and evaluation of health and wellness business opportunities in the hospital market. He has over 20 years' experience in the various areas of health risk management ranging from cost-benefit research to building entrepreneurial ventures in health management-related businesses.
As a Chief Operating Officer for an international joint venture, with the People Company of Japan and Karch International, focused on diversified human resource services, Dan designed and developed comprehensive health and work-life programs for large healthcare, corporate, and government institutions. He also developed information and software systems to support outcomes measurement. In addition, he developed specific health risk intervention programs for commercial and corporate distribution.
Dan has directed extensive research on the economic impacts of work site health promotion while at The American University's National Center for Health/Fitness. He has spoken at national and international forums and has been active in developing integrated approaches for assessing, monitoring, and measuring population health risks.
Dan has been recognized and commended by the U.S. Army Materiel Command, the National Center for Health/Fitness, and The American University for his contributions relating to health promotion. Dan has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and a master's degree in Health Management from The American University.
Neal Sofian, MSPH, neal@newsof.com, is the CEO of The NewSof Group. Previously, he was the founder and original Vice President of Program Development for Lexant, a technology-centered population health services company developed and spun off by Monsanto to deliver behaviorally based disease and lifestyle management interventions. Lexant focused its services primarily on Fortune 500 corporations and large healthcare delivery systems.
Prior to starting Lexant, Neal was the General Manager of Health At Work, managing work site and community health programs for Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, one of the nation's oldest and most respected health maintenance organizations. During his 14-year tenure at Group Health, Neal directed the development, implementation, and marketing of all health promotion, preventive care, and disease management services, serving employers, insurers, and healthcare organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. This work included the development of alternative nationally based disease management services for diabetes, asthma, and a wide variety of health behavior interventions. Neal also designed benefits packages for employer groups that incorporated health promotion, health management, time loss, and financial incentives to encourage improvements in population health, while increasing market share and reducing total costs. Neal also served as the Manager for Innovation for the Cooperative.
In addition to the healthcare clients listed in this overview, Mr. Sofian's clients have included Procter & Gamble, Fruit of the Loom, GTE, Sears, Texas Instruments, Ameritech, Eli Lilly, Glaxo Wellcome, and Marion Merrell Dow. He also has extensive experience working with voluntary and public organizations including, The American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the United States Air Force. Currently, Neal serves as the Vice President of Finance and Secretary for the Association for Worksite Health Promotion.
Neal is a nationally known speaker and author on topics ranging from integrating technologies into behavioral interventions, to population-based tobacco cessation strategies, to the role of humor as an organizational development tool.
Neal has served a health education specialist with the Bureau of Community Health Education in the Missouri State Division of Health, and a clinical instructor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Missouri School of Medicine. Neal holds a master's degree in public health from the University of Missouri.
Andrew Wyllie, Vice President, Technology
Andrew Wyllie has been involved in the development of cutting edge technologies since the 1980s. At NewSof, he is responsible for the development of all application and site development. His current work focuses on sites running under Apache using mod_perl with a MySQL database. The sites are designed to build communities by integrating personal email, personal webpages which can be seen by other users on the site, a buddy list, discussion forums, private chat area, and a gallery to post art, stories, poems, etc. These sites also have their own publishing system, which allows the webmaster to manage the content on sites through a web interface. This system also makes it possible to generate other file formats (such as pdf) from the same set of content.
Prior to working with the NewSof Group Andrew served as a Senior Software Developer for Cobalt Group. He built a system to track and configure over 8000 websites. The code for the system was written in perl and DHTML and used an Oracle database on the backend. The system configures an unlimited number of webservers running the Apache web server software, supports the BIG/ip load balancing system from F5 (hardware which balances load across multiple web servers), and builds the namserver database including support for geographic load balancing through DNS (via the F5 3DNS product).
Andrew worked as a Senior Web Systems Developer at Design Intelligence, Inc. where he directed Web site management including dynamic generation of sites and webserver administration (Netscape Enterprise server running on Silicon Graphics, Apache webserver on SGI, Solaris, and NT). He designed and developed all of the CGI/dynamic content using Perl and UNIX shell scripts. Andrew was responsible for building an electronic commerce system to sell products over the Internet. Built graphical website analysis tool. XML and XSL research. He has also worked as a Network/Systems Administrator for Silicon Graphics Canada, Inc. and the University of Toronto. His areas of expertise include:
* UNIX/Network Administration - 10 years (experience with SGI-IRIX, Sun-Solaris/SunOS, HP-HPUX, DEC-Ultrix/OSF1, Linux, FreeBSD, and BSDi)
* Perl (v5) - 5 years
* Web Languages - HTML, DHTML, XML, XSL, JavaScript, and CSS
* Other Languages - C and Java
* Databases: Oracle, MySQLAndrew has his degree from the University of Toronto.
Jonathan P. Edstrom PhD., Senior Programmer
Much of John's career as a neurobiologist has revolved around developing computer applications on a wide variety of operating systems and computers for research for the past 20+ years. For example, he has written an asynchronous, multi-threaded application under DEC UNIX with an X11 Motif GUI to interactively co-ordinate and control the remote gathering and local storage of electrophysiological data acquired on a Motorola VMEbus computer with OS-9 (A UNIX-like operating system for real-time applications), the taking of video micrographs with an MS-Windows 3.1 computer, and the recording of typed notes and records of experiments which were all stored in an SQL database.
John maintains a significant interest in the technology underlying the World Wide Web and creating highly interactive web sites including the initial library section, at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. He created the prototype 'MatheMatrix' site, a Perl-driven site assisting math teachers meet teaching standards (http://kids.hmsc.orst.edu). He has also developed Perl-driven secure e-commerce retail sites.
John is one of the founders of the Quickdraw Animation Society in Calgary. QAS (http://www.awn.com/qas/ ) an artist-run center devoted specifically to the art of animation. Since its inception in 1984, John has served in a variety of board roles including, Treasurer, Secretary, and President of the society.
John holds his PhD from the University of Saskatchewan with Postdoctoral studies completed at the University of Calgary in Neurophysiology. Prior to working with NewSof John has worked at Oregon State University and the University of Calgary
Brian D. Schieber M.S. Senior Programmer
Brian Schieber comes to NewSof with over 15 years of experience as a software developer, analyst and researcher. In Seattle he's worked as a "dotcommer" for two startups, developing Internet solutions on UNIX and Windows platforms and a variety of languages. Prior to coming to Seattle in 1999, he lived in Maryland and San Diego, working as an oceanographer, software developer and science analyst for NASA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He was a key investigator in oceanographic bio-optics and satellite-based remote sensing and has spent many days at sea. His research took him to both poles plus tropical and temperate regions. He has a Masters Degree in Biological Oceanography and a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science.
Brian lives on Vashon Island outside of Seattle in the middle of Puget Sound. He is an avid year-round motorcyclist and is a motorcycle safety instructor.
David Halpin, Project Manager
David is currently a Project Manager with The NewSof Group a Seattle-based consulting company focused on the application of technology for health-related strategies and program development.
Previous to The NewSof group David worked with Washington Mutual Bank on new technology installations. David performed data integrity analysis, led user-training sessions and did module programming using Fox Pro technologies. Prior to his work with Washington Mutual David worked with HBSI (now Solucient) a company providing tools to analyze clinical, cost and patient perception outcomes. David was the Market Research Lead, providing marketing research and analysis and marketing program recommendations. David was also a Project Lead for HBSI's signature product, HBSI EXPLORE, leading a team of software engineers, clients and data analysts in programming the data-sharing module. While at HBSI David had extensive client contact with major health systems such as Voluntary Hospitals of America and Catholic Health Systems.
Prior to his work with HBSI David was the Director of Marketing for Bridge Street Funding, a financial services firm. In this position David performed extensive primary and secondary research while establishing new target markets and marketing strategies. David also established a client retention program based on installing new technologies at client sites.
David holds a BS in Business Administration from Boston University.
Wendy Graff, MSPH, MA, Senior Consultant
Wendy Graff serves as a senior consultant with the NewSof Group. The primary of her efforts during the past year have been the around client and project management. Her major projects have been the development of The Virtual Teachers Lounge, an online support community for teachers throughout the State of California to support their adoption of the nutrition education, and Meals Matter, a tailored nutrition education and menu planning service. Prior to her work with NewSof, Wendy was the Principal Owner of Graff & Associates, a management consulting company with expertise in project management; writing (print and digital); organization development; facilitation and team building; program development, Implementation and evaluation; curriculum and training design and Implementation; research and analysis.
Ms. Graff also worked as the Community Services Coordinator, for the Center for Health Promotion, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound where she developed and consulted on worksite health promotion; managed community collaborations including national and regional conferences; designed, implemented and evaluated numerous community health education programs. Other positions she has held include, Health Education Coordinator at the Institute on Aging, University of Washington, Genetic Disease Program Administrator, at the California Department of Health Services, Berkley, Project Director/Education for the Association of Western Hospitals, San Francisco, CA and as a Project Coordinator, for Planned Parenthood Association, San Diego, CA.
Wendy holds a Masters Degree in Sociology from the University of Washington and a Masters Degree In Health Education from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Suzanne A Williams, Director Marketing/Communications
As a marketing consultant in the preventive healthcare arena, Suzanne brings over 13 years of diverse and demonstrated experience in the marketing of health promotion and disease management programs across multiple mediums.
In addition to her work with NewSof, Suzanne's key clients include; The Mayo Clinic and Health Scout. Previously, Suzanne served as Marketing and Communications Manager for Lexant Inc, a hi-tech provider of population-based, personalized health improvement programs delivered through multiple mediums. Suzanne also spent eight years heading up the marketing division for People Karch International (PKI), a management/consulting company providing health and wellness products and services.
From the development and management of a brand and its identity to the public relations and promotional campaigns, Suzanne has played an integral role in the local and national launch of numerous new ventures/organizations, products and services. Her experiences span both the corporate and consumer aspects of marketing. Suzanne's demonstrated ability in working both at the grass roots level of marketing as well as developing and spearheading relationships with multiple international Ad/graphic agencies and PR firms has given her the ability to work at all levels of an organization or product. New corporate and product launches include; Lexant Inc, Hyarc Technologies, doHealth (on-line health management tool), Biometrics (a comprehensive weight management program), PKI's Software for Windows and Health Spectrum (a health risk appraisal tool).
Suzanne's highly communicative style and depth of experience in the health/marketing arena serve as the basis for her ability to maximize both reach and impact in the launch of new organizations, products and services. Suzanne holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Promotion from James Madison University in Virginia.
Mary Shokes - Manager, Sound Design and Audio Production
Mary brings 8 years of professional multimedia sound design and audio production experience. With video games and websites as her focus, she has experience in many areas of the trade, including system design, field and location recording, creative sound design, audio producing, audio editing, soundscapes, all aspects of working with voice talent, and music interactivity. She has put her talents to use on websites such as MungoPark.Com, Altrec.Com, SecondStory.Com, MSN.Com, Viatru.Com, acscsn.org and others. Games that Mary has been a member of the development team have included Microsoft's Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far, My Personal Tutor, MSBaseball2000, NBA InsideDrive2000, NFL Fever 2000, Flight Simulator, and others. She recently finished audio production for all of the audio tours in the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle. It is not uncommon for Mary to be on hiatus to record on her own in the jungles of the Amazon, or the mountains of Ecuador.
Tony Lotven, Director of Communities Management
Tony is a twenty-year business and marketing veteran, spending much of his career in the apparel, gift, advertising, and advertising specialty industries. Graduating from the University Missouri, he gained his experiential knowledge first as a nationally recognized manufacturers' representative, then as a Top 100 business owner in the decorated apparel industry, and finally as a marketing and creative consultant. During his extensive career, he has worked with hundreds of clients and businesses, ranging from small retail outlets, to large manufacturers, to world-class apparel companies. His clients have included Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Caterpillar International. He is a contributing editor for Impressions Magazine.
In joining the NewSof Group, Tony brings his communication, planning, creative, business, marketing, and personal skills, education, training, and experience to forward-thinking solutions for health care concerns.
Tony is also a life-long accomplished musician, using his skills as a performer and in the studio, being versed and involved in all aspects of the production of original music, music beds, and creative audio advertising. He is a member of Broadcast Music International (BMI). He is a very dedicated husband and father of three children, and derives much of his drive, compassion, and joy from his family.
David Urban, Senior Web Designer
After graduating from Art Center College of Design, David Urban jumped headfirst into technology, designing interfaces for children's educational software. David then launched the inaugural homepage for Warner Bros. Online and designed sites for other WB properties, including HBO and Madonna. David served as a roving art director for idealab!, an e-commerce incubator, where he worked on sites for GoTo.com, WeddingChannel, eToys, and Tickets.com. David landed permanently at Tickets.com, helping to define their visual brand identity both online and offline. After opening his own design firm in 2001, David began working with NewSof Group, designing sites for organizations such as the Dairy Council of California and the American Cancer Society. David brings a rare combination of graphic design and illustration, plus a thorough understanding of Web design and architecture to the table. When not working, David transforms into a guitar-playing, oil-painting zealot who occasionally drives his family nuts.
Al Boss, Webmaster/Web Developer
Al Boss broke his first computer in 1978, when the University of Missouri administrative mainframe declared him dead, and the Registrar's office insisted he must be deceased because "the computer could not make that kind of mistake". His graduate degree is in community development. He became involved in using Internet tools to help people design their own community processes and projects. He has developed Web sites for a number of organizations, ranging from the world's largest healthcare benchmarking software corporation to the Community Management Programme of Uganda (a United Nations program), and was a judge for the National Information Infrastructure awards. He was previously the Web Master for Design Intelligence, and developed both client and server-based demonstrations using tools including Perl, Java, JavaScript, DHTML, RealAudio, and Macromedia Flash. On the online training side, he developed course materials for, and taught, website usability, user-centered Website design, HTML, basic Web site design, Internet use: introduction and advanced use, use of operating systems and office software, including Microsoft Windows, the Microsoft Office Suite, Linux, StarOffice Suite, MacOS, ClarisWorks, Sun Solaris, and Irix.
His Web site for the Community Development Society won the International Community Development Achievement award, and his Web site for Design Intelligence won the Software Publisher's Association design award.
Al is a volunteer with Neighborhood Networks, Seattle Habitat for Humanity, Cancer Lifeline, Crisis Clinic, the King County Library System, the Westwood Neighborhood Council, South Seattle Cooperative Preschools, the Community Development Society, the University of Missouri Alumni Association, and the Seattle Community Network. He consumes a frightening amount of coffee.
Kristina Olson, Web Designer/ Developer
Kristina Olson joined NewSof Group as a Web Designer/ Developer after being employed five years with Starbucks Company as a Shift Supervisor while pursuing her degree in Web Design.
Kristina is continuing her education in Web and Graphic Design at Lake Washington Technical College. She utilizes HTML, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand and Flash with ongoing projects at NewSof Group.
She is the youngest member of NewSof Group, and looks forward to continuing her professional growth as a Web Design/ Developer.
Subuhi Asheer, MPH, Analyst Consultant
Subuhi joined NewSof as a consultant while obtaining her Masters degree in Public Health from Yale University. She has since worked on several key projects including the development of a prenatal health care program for the March of Dimes, and the American Cancer Society online program for Cancer Survivors. With her main focus on international health at Yale as well as her consulting experience at UNICEF and NewSof, she has gained important communication, research, and analytical skills. Prior to working with NewSof, she has had extensive biomedical research experience and has developed skills key to working in health administration and pure science environments at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, and at Rockefeller University in New York.
Subuhi is currently working with NewSof from Karachi, Pakistan. Her US educational background and job experience, combined with her current understanding of the health issues in Pakistan as well as on a global level, bring a unique and crucial perspective to the NewSof team.
The NewSof Group Strategically Aligned Consulting Staff
S. Michael Ross, MD, MHA
Michael Ross has been a leader and innovator in a variety of healthcare settings over the past two decades. He was Chief Medical Officer of Health Online, Inc., a leading e-commerce and e-care company working with a network of healthcare organizations across the country to develop custom and syndicate eSolutions.
A pediatrician by training, Dr. Ross has nine years of clinical experience and managed one of the most successful pediatric practices in Washington, DC. After leaving clinical practice, Dr. Ross served as Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer at MetLife HealthCare Network of South Florida, Inc. where he managed a 4,000-member provider organization with responsibilities for over 100,000 covered lives. Dr. Ross also served as the Executive Director of Scottish Rite Pediatric Partners, a full?service Medical Service Organization providing practice and clinical management services to over 100 pediatricians in Atlanta, Georgia.
Prior to becoming Health Online, Inc.'s Senior Medical Officer, Dr. Ross' efforts were focused on developing products designed to allow the safe synthesis of select high quality complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) services into conventional care. He launched five branded holistic healthcare centers (EverWell Healthcare Centers) in Atlanta and Denver, developed more than 2000 holistic algorithm extensions allowing patients to be appropriately triaged across the full clinical continuum and developed a large carefully credentialed CAM provider network (HolistiCare) successfully engaging two major health plan clients (3.4 million covered lives) in Georgia.
Douglas E. Goldstein
Doug is a widely recognized global eHealthcare strategist, consultant and educator. He has helped leading healthcare organizations develop e-businesses and e-services necessary to improve performance and enhance profitability. Douglas is the author and editor of the new book and CD-ROM, e-Healthcare: Harness the Power of Internet e-Commerce and e-Care (Aspen Publishers, Inc. 2000). He has been the e-Strategist and developer of numerous health and medical Web sites including: Medformation.com, HealthOnline.com, Health Adventure, a 1998 Smithsonian, ComputerWorld nominee; GreatestHits.com, DreamDog.com, Bio-Portraits.com, THEO - Teen Health Education Online, and eHealthcare.net.
Mr. Goldstein is the President of eHealthcare.net. eHealthcare.net is an innovative e-Healthcare development and consulting firms dedicated to better healthcare through appropriate use of technology. He also has served as founder, Chairman and CEO of Health Online, Inc. for eight years and he was a co-founder and vice president of 1-800-DOCTORS (1-800-DOCTORS.COM), a doctor information and appointment service. Doug also serves on numerous advisory boards for public and private eHealth companies including RnetHealth, Inc. (www.rnethealth.com) and Cytura, Inc. (www.cytura.com). He writes "Medical Internet," a monthly column for Managed Care Interface magazine and he has penned numerous articles on healthcare e-commerce and e-care. In addition to the recent e-Healthcare book and CD-ROM, he was the lead author of five finance, healthcare and business Best of the Net Internet books from McGraw Hill Irwin and three noted books on healthcare management.
Kathleen Cromp, RN, MPH
Kathleen is a senior consultant with NewSof with a focus on organizational improvement and change, working with leaders, clinical care providers & staff, and policy-makers. Her focus is organizational learning and systems that lead to improved performance and policy & regulatory compliance.
Most recently, Kathleen held the position of Director for Quality Integration at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, where she led development of the organization's quality system and improvement strategy, and successfully designed & introduced a model for system-wide clinical improvement that still endures 8 years after its inception. During her tenure at Group Health, Kathleen also directed the Family Practice Residency and the drug and alcohol treatment unit.
Kathleen has been on the teaching faculty of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) since 1990, having taught quality improvement concepts and methods in a variety of settings locally and nationally. She currently directs IHI's Rapid Cycle Improvement course. Her 20+ year healthcare experience also spans preventive care, clinical operations, program development and implementation, policy and regulatory requirements, and nursing practice.
Previous positions have included nursing and management positions at Children's Orthopedic Hospital and the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor Michigan. Kathleen holds both an RN degree and Masters of Public Health from the University of Michigan.
Richard Marks, MHA
Richard is a senior consultant for NewSof who assists healthcare organizations with strategic planning, business development, market assessments, and project management. Mr. Marks has special expertise in business analysis, systems operations, alliances and partnerships, and managed care. He also works with healthcare organizations on performance improvement through organizational assessments, operational analysis, and strategy development.
Mr. Marks has served as a consultant to hospitals and health systems for the past two years, assisting them with planning and business development projects. Prior to beginning his consulting practice, Mr. Marks worked for twenty years in executive management positions at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, one of the nation's oldest, most respected managed care organizations. He was the founding President and Chief Executive Officer of Virginia Mason-Group Health Alliance, Inc., and guided it from a start-up venture to a statewide health plan serving more than 75,000 people and generating more than $125 million in annual revenues. He also served as the CEO of Options Health Care and the Virginia Mason Health Plan.
Prior to assuming his health plan position, Mr. Marks served as Group Health's Vice President of Quality and Planning, with responsibility for planning and policy analysis, quality management, organization development, and research activities. In addition, he worked for ten years in Group Health's delivery system, as a Regional Vice President with management responsibility for a 150-bed hospital, a large multi-specialty center, and six primary care clinics in east King and Snohomish counties. He also was responsible for managing Group Health's contract provider networks in Western Washington State.
Mr. Marks has also services as Human Services Planner, and as a Clinic Manager for the Northwest Baltimore Corporation. Mr. Marks has a Masters degree in Health Services Administration from the University of Washington, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley.
Darryl Price
Darryl serves as a senior consultant for the NewSof Group. In addition to NewSof, Mr. Price is the Principal of Old Dogs in the New Economy, a marketing and business development agency, connecting new economy technologies and old economy business fundamentals. Previously, Darryl served as Executive Director of Physician Markets for Pointshare Corporation, a national leader in providing secure online health care business transactions. His responsibilities included physician market product positioning, pricing, tactical sales planning and implementation. Prior to his work with Pointshare, Darryl was the Executive Director for Business Services for Group Health Cooperative and was responsible for all business development for the clinics, hospitals and occupational health services, managing $64 million dollars of revenue for the organization. As part of his responsibilities Darryl led an organization-wide consolidation of business operations including redesign of all roles and responsibilities, weekly, monthly and annual targets identified and tied to performance. Created and led Group Health's centralized business operations department in implementing the first ever business operations manual (hard copy and on-line),on-line and classroom coding support, audits, and training programs.
Before coming to Group Health, Mr. Price was the Principal of Price & Associates, a business development and marketing company. His clients crossed a wide variety of business sectors of the economy. His clients included: Boston Traders, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Fresh Squeeze, James Jeans, Group Health Cooperative, Restaurant Services Incorporated.
Barbara Porter, MA
Barbara holds a degree in International Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She is a visionary leader with entrepreneurial spirit. Experienced in developing marketing strategies for B2B as well as B2C opportunities, she is skilled in business development, consultative selling and strategic account management. Her expertise lies in keen strategy development, analytical and persuasive skills. Her extensive industry experience includes information technology, healthcare, consulting services, and investment services.
She has spent the past four years working as Senior Consultant and Director, Client Services and Development at Milliman and Robertson, Inc. where she developed the first business development and marketing strategy for a rapidly evolving healthcare consulting group. Also included in her list of achievements is the launch of the first M&R internet site. Before joining M&R, Barbara has worked for Wang Laboratories as an International Marketing Consultant, at Safeco Securities as Marketing manager, and she was the Director of Sales at INC magazine. |
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