As the President & CEO of the Mental Health Center of Denver, Dr. Clark inspires a culture of innovation and well-being by delivering strengths-based, person-centered, culturally- proficient services as well as employing trauma-informed, evidence-based practices. Under his leadership, the Mental Health Center of Denver has recently been named a finalist for a 2018 World Changing Idea Award from Fast Company Magazine, and won the 2018 Excellence in Behavioral Healthcare Management Award from the National Council for Behavioral Health. The Mental Health Center of Denver is proud to be a Denver Post Top Work Place for 7 years running.

Drew DiGiovanni, MPH, FACMPE, brings over thirty years of marketing, management, and strategy experience to the  OPEN MINDS team.  This broad knowledge has contributed to his success in service innovation, service line development, and market positioning.

Mr. DiGiovanni previously served as the Vice President of Quality for Premise Health/ CHS Services.  In this role Mr. DiGiovanni led the development and implementation of a performance management program 150 clinic locations in thirty-eight states.  When the organization completed a merger with Take Care, he led the integration plan for 500 service locations.   Throughout his tenure with Premise Health, Mr. DiGiovanni was also responsible for patient satisfaction, clinical quality, risk management, facilities and compliance auditing, operational efficiency and workflow redesign, policy management and document control, and patient safety programming.

Prior to his work with Premise Health, Mr. DiGiovanni served as the Director of Education and Distance Learning for the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).  During his tenure, he directed a revenue center of over ten million dollars and maintained consistent increase in revenue with a ten to fifteen percent growth yearly.

In this role, Mr. DiGiovanni developed a comprehensive curriculum in ambulatory care administration, with focus on operational efficiency, finance, compliance, and executive leadership.   He also created a professional bootcamp for MGMA.

Earlier in his career, Mr. DiGiovanni served in multiple roles with the Mendocino Community Health Clinic in Ukiah, California including Director of Marketing & Strategic Planning, Director of Operations and Director of Support Services.

In addition to his commercial experience, Mr. DiGiovanni was also an  Associate Professor position at Regis University in Denver.   He developed and taught courses in marketing for for physicians and administrators in the university’s Healthcare MBA program.  Mr. DiGiovanni also co-developed the online curriculum for Healthcare Marketing for the institution.

Joseph F. Rutherford, M.A., M.B.A., is the Chief Executive Officer of Gracepoint, Inc., in Tampa, Florida. He has extensive professional experience in managing community-base behavioral service delivery, including financial and technology management.

As CEO of Gracepoint (rebranded from Mental Health Care, Inc.), Joe manages a $36 million community mental health agency. Prior to his current position, Joe served as the Chief Executive Officer of Avita Community Partners, a Georgia community service board. Prior to joining Avita, he was the Assistant Director of Northside Mental Health Center in Tampa, overseeing the administrative functioning at this organization.

Areas of Expertise

• Administrative and leadership of service provider organization
• Financial management and design of financial indicator systems
• Development of funding and clinical program initiatives
• Managed care implementation and revenue maximization

Professional Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer of Gracepoint, Inc.
• Chief Executive Officer, Avita Community Partners
• Associate Director, Northside Mental Health Center
• Partner, Behavioral Management Solutions
• Quality Assurance Director, Helen Ross McNabb Center

Joe’s current focus is the integration of health care within a large Behavioral Health organization. Working closely with local FQHCs and hospital systems, models for care are now being finalized to better coordinate the health care for the patients served. Prior to this, he led the turn-around process necessary for a Georgia Community Service Board suffering from a $4.8 million reduction in funding. Mr. Rutherford also became a certified independent consultant with CMHC Systems, and was involved in management activities ranging from new system implementations to managed care information systems setup.

Mr. Rutherford started his career working as a Licensed Psychological Examiner for the Clinton City School System. After three years in this role, he was appointed as the Assistant Administrator and Director of Quality Assurance for the Helen Ross McNabb Mental Health Center. Mr. Rutherford directed the implementation and management of the first management information system at the McNabb Center.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Mr. Rutherford received his B.A. and Master degrees in psychology in 1979 and 1982 respectively from Tennessee Technological University. In 1995, he completed a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) with Nova Southeastern University.

Allison Rizer, MHS, MBA is the former Vice President of Strategy & Health Policy at UnitedHealthcare where she focused on issues related to Medicare-Medicaid integration. In this capacity, Allison addressed and anticipated the evolving policy landscape in an effort to promote sustainable solutions to serve individuals dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. She is a champion of policy and program design efforts both internally and externally that minimize burdens and barriers for dual eligibles navigating the complex healthcare and social services systems.

Prior to joining UnitedHealthcare, Allison worked with The Lewin Group, a healthcare and human services policy consulting firm. While at Lewin, Allison’s work focused on vulnerable, aging populations. She led numerous projects with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and the Office on Women’s Health involving the Medicare population and older lesbian and bisexual women. Her work at Lewin strived to improve health outcomes and programmatic experiences for these individuals.

Allison has a Master of Health Science in Health Policy from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and a Master of Business Administration with a focus on Healthcare from University of St. Thomas.

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.

Drew DiGiovanni, MPH, FACMPE, brings over thirty years of marketing, management, and strategy experience to the  OPEN MINDS team.  This broad knowledge has contributed to his success in service innovation, service line development, and market positioning.

Mr. DiGiovanni previously served as the Vice President of Quality for Premise Health/ CHS Services.  In this role Mr. DiGiovanni led the development and implementation of a performance management program 150 clinic locations in thirty-eight states.  When the organization completed a merger with Take Care, he led the integration plan for 500 service locations.   Throughout his tenure with Premise Health, Mr. DiGiovanni was also responsible for patient satisfaction, clinical quality, risk management, facilities and compliance auditing, operational efficiency and workflow redesign, policy management and document control, and patient safety programming.

Prior to his work with Premise Health, Mr. DiGiovanni served as the Director of Education and Distance Learning for the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).  During his tenure, he directed a revenue center of over ten million dollars and maintained consistent increase in revenue with a ten to fifteen percent growth yearly.

In this role, Mr. DiGiovanni developed a comprehensive curriculum in ambulatory care administration, with focus on operational efficiency, finance, compliance, and executive leadership.   He also created a professional bootcamp for MGMA.

Earlier in his career, Mr. DiGiovanni served in multiple roles with the Mendocino Community Health Clinic in Ukiah, California including Director of Marketing & Strategic Planning, Director of Operations and Director of Support Services.

In addition to his commercial experience, Mr. DiGiovanni was also an  Associate Professor position at Regis University in Denver.   He developed and taught courses in marketing for for physicians and administrators in the university’s Healthcare MBA program.  Mr. DiGiovanni also co-developed the online curriculum for Healthcare Marketing for the institution.

D

Dominick DiSalvo is the Corporate Director of Clinical Services for KidsPeace. He completed his Graduate and Post Graduate education at LaSalle University earning a MA in Clinical Counseling and is a Licensed Professional Counselor. He has been an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Lehigh Carbon Community College. Dominick has worked in the mental health field in numerous capacities for over the past 15 years. Dominick was offered the opportunity to become one of the first in the state of Pennsylvania to become nationally certified as a Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT) therapist which occurred in 2013 and first in the nation to be re-certified in 2018.At KidsPeace, Dominick has developed clinical programming with the emphasis on Trauma-Informed, Family/Youth Lead, Data-Driven, and Evidence-Based to help lead longer lasting success and improvement in total quality of life of the whole family. This leads to the residential program becoming designated as an Evidence Based Program by an independent provider (EPIC) for the use of TF-CBT. His work in Trauma and past experiences in RTF, has led to looking at ways to incorporate more holistic approaches in the treatment of adolescents, and helping to ensure all needs of families can be addressed.

Drew DiGiovanni, MPH, FACMPE, brings over thirty years of marketing, management, and strategy experience to the  OPEN MINDS team.  This broad knowledge has contributed to his success in service innovation, service line development, and market positioning.

Mr. DiGiovanni previously served as the Vice President of Quality for Premise Health/ CHS Services.  In this role Mr. DiGiovanni led the development and implementation of a performance management program 150 clinic locations in thirty-eight states.  When the organization completed a merger with Take Care, he led the integration plan for 500 service locations.   Throughout his tenure with Premise Health, Mr. DiGiovanni was also responsible for patient satisfaction, clinical quality, risk management, facilities and compliance auditing, operational efficiency and workflow redesign, policy management and document control, and patient safety programming.

Prior to his work with Premise Health, Mr. DiGiovanni served as the Director of Education and Distance Learning for the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).  During his tenure, he directed a revenue center of over ten million dollars and maintained consistent increase in revenue with a ten to fifteen percent growth yearly.

In this role, Mr. DiGiovanni developed a comprehensive curriculum in ambulatory care administration, with focus on operational efficiency, finance, compliance, and executive leadership.   He also created a professional bootcamp for MGMA.

Earlier in his career, Mr. DiGiovanni served in multiple roles with the Mendocino Community Health Clinic in Ukiah, California including Director of Marketing & Strategic Planning, Director of Operations and Director of Support Services.

In addition to his commercial experience, Mr. DiGiovanni was also an  Associate Professor position at Regis University in Denver.   He developed and taught courses in marketing for for physicians and administrators in the university’s Healthcare MBA program.  Mr. DiGiovanni also co-developed the online curriculum for Healthcare Marketing for the institution.

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.