CAC Board

[peter marshall <techdiff@ix.netcom.com>]

http://www.cacenter.org/bod.htm
                  [Citizen Advocacy Center]

                   [CAC Board of Directors]

 The following individuals serve on the Citizen Advocacy
 Center Board of Directors. (All Board members serve as
 individuals. Institutional affiliations are included for
 identification purposes only.)

 Chairman of the Benjamin Shimberg, Educational Testing
 Board           Service (retired)

 President and
 CEO             David Swankin, Citizen Advocacy Center

 Executive Vice  Rebecca Arnold LeBuhn, Citizen Advocacy
 President       Center

 Secretary and   Ruth Horowitz, Public Member, New York State
 Treasurer       Board for Professional Medical Conduct

 Vice President  Dorothy Powell, Dean, Howard University
                 College of Nursing

 Directors       Beatrice Braun, Board of Directors, American
                 Association of Retired Persons

                 Harriett Wedgeworth Clark, Vice
                 President/Assistant General Counsel, Kaiser
                 Foundation Health Plan, Inc.

                 Leonard Finocchio, Associate Director, Center
                 for the Health Professions, University of
                 California, San Francisco

                 Alexander Grant, President, The Grant Group

                 Barbara Gregg, President, Consumer
                 Connections

                 Elma Holder, Founder, National Citizensı
                 Coalition for Nursing Home Reform

                 Andrew Hyams, Deputy General Counsel, Boston
                 Public Health Commission

                 Barbara Kreml, President, BBK & Associates

                 Arthur Levin, Director, Center for Medical
                 Consumers

                 Brian Lindberg, Executive Director, Coalition
                 for Consumer Protection and Quality in Health
                 Care Reform

                 Mark Speicher, President, OptiMed Resources,
                 Inc.

                 Melvin Tuggle, President, Clergy United for
                 Renewal in East Baltimore

                            [Image]
                Board of Directorsı Biographies

 Beatrice S. Braun is a member of the Board of Directors of
 the AARP. She has been a member of AARPıs National
 Legislative Council, a state coordinator for Health Advocacy
 Services and Chair of the Health and Long Term Care Action
 Committee of the Florida Leadership Council. Dr. Braun is a
 member of the State Advisory Council for the Florida
 Department of Elder Affairs and serves on the Board of
 Directors for the Area Agency on Aging. Dr. Braun founded and
 directed a Day Treatment Program for the severely and
 persistently mentally ill at St. Vincent's Hospital in
 Harrison, NY. She practiced psychiatry for 16 years and is a
 Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Prior to
 that, Dr. Braun served as a family physician and missionary
 in South Korea.

 Harriett Wedgeworth Clark is Vice President, Assistant
 General Counsel and Assistant Secretary for the Kaiser
 Foundation Health Plan, Inc. She is a former public member of
 the California Board of Registered Nursing where she served
 as President from 1993-1995. Ms. Clark practices in the
 fields of health care and labor law and is knowledgeable
 about scopes of practice, credentialling, licensure, peer
 review, quality assurance, utilization management, education
 and training, discipline, compensation, and related issues.
 Ms. Clarkıs many appointments include Chair of the Unlicensed
 Assistive Personnel Committee and Member of the Bylaws
 Committee of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
 Ms. Clark is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bay
 Area Black Consortium for Quality Health Care and the Bay
 Area Black United Fund.

 Leonard Finocchio, is Associate Director for State Programs
 at the Center for the Health Professions at the University of
 California, San Francisco and Staff Co-Director of the Pew
 Health Professions Commission and Staff Director of the
 Commissionıs Taskforce on Health Care Workforce Regulation.
 Mr. Finocchio researches and writes about health professions
 regulation, the allied health workforce, community health
 workers, medical education, and state health workforce
 policy. He has consulted on workforce issues for the National
 Commission on Allied Health, the National Conference of State
 Legislatures, the states of Alabama, Maine, Washington, and
 Colorado, and many health professional schools. Mr. Finocchio
 is an adjunct professor in the Department of Health Education
 at San Francisco State University. He completed his Master of
 Public Health degree at UCLA and is currently a doctoral
 student in health policy at the University of Michigan, Ann
 Arbor. Mr Finocchio has been a certified emergency medical
 technician for 13 years.

 Alexander Grant is President of The Grant Group, a consumer
 consulting company providing communication opportunities for
 the public and business community. From 1978- 1997, Mr. Grant
 was Associate Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, the US Food
 and Drug Administration. In this capacity, he was the
 principal advisor to the Commissioner on consumer affairs
 policy and emerging issues through agencywide programs on
 womenıs health, patient education, health fraud and other
 special health concerns. He coordinated public participation
 between the agency and organizations that represented varied
 consumer interests and managed agencywide programs to train,
 inform and involve consumer on the national and local level
 in FDA policy setting. Mr. Grant has served on the boards of
 directors of numerous consumer organizations including the
 National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators, the
 National Coalition for Consumer Education, and the Society of
 Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business. Mr. Grant has
 received the Food Marketing Instituteıs Esther Peterson Award
 for Consumer Excellence, the Philip Hart Award from Consumer
 Federation of America, and the Award for Excellence in
 Government Consumer Affairs from the Conference of Consumer
 Organizations, among others.

 Barbara B. Gregg managed her own consulting firm, Consumer
 Connections, which is dedicated to improving
 consumer/business relations. Ms. Gregg is a lawyer and
 consumer advocate who was the Director of the Montgomery
 County Office of Consumer Affairs for over twenty years.
 Under her leadership, the organization grew from a small
 office enforcing a single deceptive trade practices law to
 one with a budget of more than two and a half million dollars
 and responsibility for enforcing a wide range of County laws.
 She has served on numerous boards and commissions and was a
 founder and past president of the National Association of
 Consumer Agency Administrators. Currently, she serves on the
 Boards of Directors of the Consumer Interest Research
 Institute, the Consumer Research Council, the United Seniors
 Health Cooperative, and the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
 Ms. Gregg received the National Association of Consumer
 Agency Administrators Presidentıs Award and in 1993 the
 Consumer Federation of America presented her with the Esther
 Peterson Award for Distinguished Consumer Service. She also
 received a Distinguished Service Award from the Washington,
 D.C. Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in 1982, and
 was named as a Washingtonian of the Year in 1975.

 Elma L. Holder retired in 1995 as Executive Director of the
 National Citizensı Coalition for Nursing Home Reform. She
 founded the organization in 1975 and continues to work as a
 NCCNHR consultant. Her work at NCCNHR has included directing
 an Administration on Aging funded Information Clearinghouse
 serving citizen advocacy groups an ombudsman programs. After
 earning her M.S. in Public Health from the University of
 Oklahoma in 1968, Ms. Holder worked as Gerontology Consultant
 to the Oklahoma State Health Department before employment in
 Washington, D.C. at the National Council on Aging and the
 National Paralegal Institute. In the 1970s, Ms Holder
 directed citizen advocacy projects for Ralph Naderıs Retired
 Professional Action Group and the National Gray Panthers.
 Among other publications, she is co-author of Nursing Homes:
 A Citizensı Action Guide.

 Ruth Horowitz is a Professor of Sociology at New York
 University. Ms. Horowitz is a public member of the New York
 State Board for Professional Medical Conduct. She is a former
 public member of the Delaware Board of Medical Practice and
 served on the Committee on Impaired Physicians and Sexual
 Boundary Issues for the Federation of State Medical Boards.
 Her fields of specialization include Social Control, Urban
 Communities, and Field Research Methods. Ms. Horowitz has
 published numerous books and articles and delivered many
 speeches and lectures in her field. In addition to the
 medical board, her community service activities include
 serving on the Board of Directors of a Wilmington drug and
 alcohol abuse program and a Wilmington Community
 Redevelopment Board.

 Andrew Hyams, is Deputy General Counsel of the Boston Public
 Health Commission where his responsibilities include
 regulatory analysis and compliance. Mr. Hyams is also an
 attorney in private practice. From 1985-1990, Mr. Hyams was
 General Counsel to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in
 Medicine where he managed litigation and legislative matters
 for the board. He is adjunct lecturer in law and public
 health at Harvard School of Public Health and was formerly
 assistant professor of Health Law at the University of New
 Hampshire Department of Health Management and Policy. Mr.
 Hyamsı recent publications include individual and co-authored
 articles on nonprofit hospital responsibilities to provide
 charity care, the use of practice guidelines in malpractice
 litigation, and the use of expert psychiatric evidence in
 sexual misconduct cases before state medical boards. Mr.
 Hyams earned his Masters of Public Health and his Juris
 Doctor degrees from Harvard University and his undergraduate
 degree from Amherst College.

 Barbara B. Kreml is President of BBK & Associates. Prior to
 establishing her own consulting firm, Ms. Kreml was Director
 of the Department of Human Resources for the American
 Hospital Association where she designed and conducted an
 annual survey on human resources that provided data on 26
 health care occupations. She represented the association at
 the national level in workforce policy areas including
 educational preparation, professional credentialing,
 utilization of personnel, staff reduction, and
 multi-skilling. She has served on many national committees,
 including National Advisory Committees on Health Care
 Apprenticeships and Collegiate Allied Health Education and
 Accreditation. She served a term as the public member of the
 Medical Transcription Certification Program Commission. Ms.
 Kreml was a member of the state issues task force of the Pew
 Health Professional Commission and serves on many committees
 of the Council on Licensure, Enforcement, and Regulation
 (CLEAR). She is a Past President and board member of the
 National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA). She is
 a member of the board of the Chicago League of Women Voters.

 Rebecca Arnold LeBuhn is Executive Vice President of CAC and
 Vice President of the Regulatory Alternatives Development
 Corporation. She has coordinated public participation in
 government regulatory proceedings, private sector
 decision-making, and technical standards development. A
 professional writer, Ms. LeBuhn is the author of numerous
 publications and newsletters on a variety of subjects
 including consumer-business relations, regulatory issues,
 health care policy, and financial services. Active in the
 public interest community, Ms. Lebuhn has been the President
 of the National Consumers League and of the Continental
 Association of Funeral and Memorial Societies and a Director
 of Consumer H-E-L-P. She was the first public member of the
 District of Columbia Board of Funeral Directors and
 Embalmers.

 Arthur A. Levin, is Director of the Center for Medical
 Consumers, a New York City based non profit organization
 committed to patient rights, principles of self autonomy and
 the doctrine of informed consent. The Center maintains a free
 medical library which contains journal and text materials
 along with lay publications, and publishes a newsletter,
 HealthFacts, which critiques medical practice using the
 medical literature and expert opinions. Long an advocate for
 public access to the information necessary for making
 informed medical decisions, Mr. Levin has a special interest
 in health policy issues involving evaluations of medical
 technology and the governmentıs role and responsibility for
 health care quality assurance. He is a member of the Consumer
 Consortium, US Food and Drug Administration; co-founder and
 member of the Committee for Quality Health Care; member of
 the Technical Advisory Group, Incident and Patient Event
 Tracking Program of the New York State Department of Public
 Health; member of the Institutional Review Board of the New
 York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia Presbyterian
 Medical Center; adjunct instructor at Columbia University
 School of Public Health and New School Graduate Program,
 Health Policy and Management; member of the board of
 directors of IPRO, the New York State Medicare Quality
 Improvement Organization; and a member of the New York State
 Bar Association Committee on Ethical Issues in the Delivery
 of Health Care. Mr. Levin earned his Masters of Public Health
 degree from Columbia University School of Public Health and
 his Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy and Economics from Reed
 College.

 Brian W. Lindberg is Executive Director of the Consumer
 Coalition for Quality Health Care which is composed of a
 diverse group of health care consumer organizations
 representing over 30 million Americans. Formerly, he was
 Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Housing and Consumer
 Interests of the U.S. House of Representatives Select
 Committee on Aging and Staff Member of the Subcommittee on
 Human Services. Mr. Lindberg also served on the staff of the
 U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging and the staff of
 Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. He has worked for Blue
 Cross of Massachusetts and Temple University Hospital.

 Dorothy Powell has been Dean of the Howard University College
 of Nursing since 1987. Her responsibilities include achieving
 and maintaining a dynamic curriculum which is responsive to
 current and future trends in society and health care;
 assembling and maintaining excellence among faculty as
 teachers, researchers, and practitioners; and, attracting a
 diverse student population by encouraging flexible programs
 and schedules. Dr. Powell also devotes time to teaching,
 consulting, scholarship and community service. She has served
 on several advisory boards, national review committees,
 committees of professional organizations, and task forces,
 including serving as a consultant to Southern Africa for the
 W.K. Kellogg Foundation and administering a Nursing Careers
 for the Homeless Grant from the federal government. Within
 the community, she has contributed time to public schools,
 her church, and civic and political associations.

 Ben Shimberg, Chairman of the CAC Board of Directors, is a
 nationally recognized expert in the fields of testing and
 occupational regulation. He is the author of Occupational
 Licensing: A Public Perspective, and co-author (with Barbara
 Esser and Daniel Kruger) of Occupational Licensing: Practices
 and Policies. He is also co-author (with Doug Roederer) of
 Occupational Licensing: Questions a Legislator Should Ask
 published by CLEAR. Mr. Shimberg spent most of his
 professional career as a research scientist at Educational
 Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey. He was a founder of
 the Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation (CLEAR).
 Since retirement, Mr. Shimberg has been active in advocacy
 activities and as a Red Cross disaster volunteer providing
 assistance to victims and their families.

 Mark R. Speicher is President of OptiMed Resources Inc. in
 Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Speicher formed OptiMed in 1998 to
 serve as a state-of-the-art credentials verification
 organization and to apply his knowledge of credentialing,
 medical regulation, and physicians assessment to health care
 providers and organizations. He consults in the areas of
 physician credentialing and privileging, provider evaluation
 and health outcomes measures, Tele-medicine and electronic
 access to medical information. OptiMedıs clients include
 hospital systems, individual hospitals, managed care
 organizations and state agencies. Mr. Speicher was previously
 Executive Director of the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners.
 Under his directorship, the Board halved its case backlog,
 developed a far-reaching public information program, and
 established the position of Medical Board ombudsman to assist
 complainants and professionals through the complaint
 investigation process, ensure that procedures were followed
 and that reasonable outcomes were reached. He was one of the
 developers of the DocFinder project for state licensing
 boards, which provides physician licensing information via
 the Internet. From 1985-1989 Mr. Speicher served as hospital
 administrator to non-profit hospitals in Arizona, where he
 developed forecasting methods, valued hospitals and health
 systems for purchase and sale, and managed acquisitions. He
 has recently spoken on topics including the regulation of the
 practice of medicine over the Internet, the use of ombudsmen
 in state licensing boards and re-engineering hospital medical
 staffs to incorporate quality-of-care data in the
 credentialing processes. Mr. Speicher has also worked in
 social work. He received a Masterıs degree in Health
 Administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke
 University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the
 University of Akron in Akron, Ohio.

 David A. Swankin is President and CEO of CAC. He is also
 President of the Regulatory Alternatives Development
 Corporation and a partner in the law firm of Swankin and
 Turner. Mr. Swankin has a broad background in both government
 and public interest advocacy. He has provided legal services
 to numerous public interest and professional organizations,
 including the National Association of Consumer Agency
 Administrators, the National Consumers League, and the
 Consumer Federation of America. Previously, Mr. Swankin was a
 Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor.
 He was the first Executive Director of the White House Office
 of Consumer Affairs.

 Melvin B. Tuggle, II is Pastor of the Garden of Prayer
 Baptist Church in one of the most impoverished areas of East
 Baltimore, Maryland. In six years, he increased the
 congregation from 12 to 300 members and initiated programs
 for adult literacy, child tutoring, youth upward mobility,
 food and shelter assistance and disease prevention, and
 others, for the church and the surrounding neighborhood. In
 1990, Reverend Tuggle was elected by CURE (Clergy United for
 Renewal in East Baltimore) to represent 233 area churches as
 the Chairman of a new ³Heart Body & Soul Partnership² with
 the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Promotion to conduct
 health and prevention programs in East Baltimore. This
 nationally-recognized program is considered a model for
 community-based health care. Reverend Tuggle has taught
 classes in the School of Public Health and in the Johns
 Hopkins University undergraduate programs.

                        | HOME | TOP |
                          [Mail CAC]