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Gregory Crow is emeritus professor and former director of graduate programs in leadership, case management, and education at California State University, Sonoma. Crow has more than 35 years of professional nursing practice in a variety of roles and settings. His administrative and leadership positions have included clinical supervisor, director of nursing, and assistant hospital administrator for patient care services for a multihospital system. Crow’s current positions are senior consultant with Tim Porter-O’Grady Associates for 20 years, and adjunct professor and director of the Vietnam Nurse Project (www.usfca.edu/nursing/Vietnam) at the University of San Francisco. Crow consults internationally in organizational and systems development, creating motivating work environments, transformational change, and the implementation of shared governance systems. He presents on these topics at state, national, and international conferences. Crow’s publications appear in a wide variety of professional nursing journals and textbooks.
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Janice Ganann is managing director at JLP and Associates, LLC. Ganann possesses more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles, and her expertise includes leadership effectiveness, organizational development, succession planning, and organizational communications. Prior to founding her own consulting practice, Ganann led the executive talent function for Banner Health. In that position, her primary responsibilities included building the leadership pipeline. She skillfully managed Banner Health’s succession planning process. In addition, she led the physician leadership development strategies within the entire system. Ganann’s broad-based experience includes executive coaching for senior leaders and teams that are committed to reaching the highest levels of business results and personal satisfaction. She supports people in reaching new levels of achievement by challenging them with an unwavering commitment to personal development. Ganann holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, and a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.
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JANELLE KRUEGER, MBA, BSN, RN, CCRN
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Janelle Krueger is senior director of Clinical Operations at the Hospital Division of Kindred Healthcare. In her 20 years with Kindred, Krueger has served in corporate- and regional-level positions in clinical, quality, administrative, and informatics departments. She has extensive experience in critical care and operational system management. She excels at program management for patient classification systems and has a passion for empowering and valuing nurses through workload management initiatives and the promotion of safe patient care. She has coauthored a chapter on patient classification systems in a nursing textbook. Krueger has comprehensive knowledge and experience in regulatory compliance, patient safety initiatives, clinical information systems, and hospital administrative roles. She received her nursing degree at Viterbo University in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and her MBA at the University of Phoenix.
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Mary Lockhart is system program manager for quality at PeaceHealth. She is an experienced healthcare manager with expertise in leading patient experience and health education programs. She has an extensive background in operational and strategic planning and patient-centered innovations in care delivery, and her experience spans nonprofit healthcare systems, university settings, and community organizations. She has achieved notable results in all these environments. Lockhart’s strengths include creating effective partnerships with diverse stakeholders and transforming vision into effective action. For the past 8 years, Lockhart has been a system program manager for Quality at PeaceHealth, a nonprofit healthcare system. Prior to joining PeaceHealth, Lockhart was co-director of Health Education Services for Kaiser Permanente in the Northwest Region, where she managed operational functions focused on the delivery of health education information, training, and consultation to patients and other clients. Lockhart holds a PhD in community health and a master’s degree in counseling psychology.
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Adrienne Lyons is a clinical consultant at Kindred Healthcare. She is a registered nurse with more than 30 years’ experience in caring for critically ill adults. She currently serves as a clinical consultant with Kindred Healthcare’s Hospital Division. From 1999 until 2012 she was the senior director of Clinical Operations for the Kindred Central Region and was responsible for implementation and maintenance of clinical programs and regulatory compliance in transitional care hospitals. In 2012 she assumed a consultant status in order to pursue a lifelong dream of earning a doctorate. She enrolled in the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at Loyola University Chicago with a focus on patient safety and outcomes management. She was awarded the DNP degree in November 2014. Her specialty is cognition and delirium management in the critically ill adult. Lyons is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, is active in Chicago area initiatives to end childhood hunger, and participates in food distribution for the local food pantry.
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JENNIFER MENSIK, PHD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
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Jennifer Mensik is an instructor at Arizona State University and director of Professional Practice at Banner Health Ironwood Medical Center. She earned a PhD in nursing from the University of Arizona College of Nursing with a major in health systems and a minor in public administration from the Eller Business College. Mensik has authored and coauthored numerous publications, including the books The Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Transitioning to the Professional Nurse Role (2015), Lead, Drive & Thrive in the System (2014), and The Nurse Manger’s Guide to Innovative Staffing (2013). Mensik led the development of the Professional Nursing Practice Framework, which is now used in all Banner Health hospitals and has been adopted by other non-Banner Health hospitals and medical centers nationally. Mensik was named Alumni of the Year for the University of Arizona College of Nursing in 2010. Mensik has served as the president of the Arizona Nurses Association and as second vice president on the Board of Directors for the American Nurses Association. Additionally, she held the role of governor of nursing practice for the Western Institute of Nursing.
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April Myers is market chief executive officer at Kindred Healthcare. Myers has more than 20 years of hospital executive leadership experience with hospitals across the United States. She currently serves as the market chief executive officer for three free-standing Southern California hospitals that are part of Kindred Healthcare, a Fortune 500 healthcare services company and a top-85 private employer in the United States. Her passion is centered on the triple-bottom-line philosophy of employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction, and financial profitability while maximizing employee engagement, operational efficiency, organizational excellence, and team building. Myers earned her MBA from Louisiana State University and earned her bachelor’s of business administration from Midwestern State University. She is also certified as a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
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Olivia Quist is associate broker at Russ Lyons Real Estate. She is an example of a lifelong learner. Growing up on a ranch in New Mexico, she spent many hours with her father, learning from experience about farming and ranching. At the University of New Mexico, she majored in speech and drama as an undergraduate and obtained her master’s of art in English literature. She taught for several years in Albuquerque and then moved to Phoenix where she became a real estate agent and has had a successful career for 35 years. She believes every situation provides an opportunity to learn, both in formal classes and from life experiences. Quist is now in her 80s, and she continues to take university-level classes online.
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JENNIFER SCHOMBURG, MHA, MA
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Jennifer Schomburg is chief operating officer at Northwest Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona. For the past 14 years, Schomburg has served in administrative positions in both the acute and post-acute sectors with HCA, UHS, Fremont Emergency Services, Kindred Healthcare, and CHS. She is experienced in leading large expansion projects, including opening new hospitals and leading teams charged with acquisitions, mergers, process improvement, service line development, and strategic planning. Schomburg is passionate about bringing staff of diverse backgrounds and strengths together and moving them to excellence. She believes in the power of leadership by being inclusive and in developing leaders at all levels of an organization. She received her master’s of healthcare administration and master’s of philosophy from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
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DOROTHY SISNEROS, MS, MBA, FAACVPR
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Dorothy Sisneros is managing partner at Thunderbird Leadership Consulting, LLC, and partner of Language of Caring, LLC. Sisneros has been involved in healthcare and education for more than 30 years and brings her experience as leader, executive coach, organization development consultant, and speaker to clients across the United States. She currently leads the Language of Caring’s Client Services and Implementation Team and is also a managing partner in Thunderbird Leadership Consulting. Sisneros has worked with organizations on systemwide initiatives as an internal leader and as a partner and consultant. She knows the power of effective teams in the workplace, and she is skilled at guiding leaders to engage the wisdom of employees and to build on their strengths to help them move to the next level of performance. She moves people and ideas to excellence, focusing teams to meet their goals and transforming complex ideas and processes into positive outcomes. Sisneros received her MS from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, MBA from the University of Phoenix, and BS from the University of Arizona.
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AMY STEINBINDER, PHD, RN, NE-BC
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Amy Steinbinder is managing partner at Thunderbird Leadership Consulting. Steinbinder’s 11-year consulting practice builds on her 30 years of proven leadership experience in healthcare organizations. She is an established organizational effectiveness consultant and executive coach who is well versed in leading large-scale change, cycles of innovation, and cultural transformation using complex adaptive systems, appreciative inquiry, and positive deviance principles. She is co-founder and principal of Thunderbird Leadership Consulting. Clients have included Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, Adelante Healthcare, Presbyterian Emergency Physicians, Health Services Advisory Group, Kindred Healthcare, Scripps, Maricopa Corporate College, ProHealth Care, and ProHealth Solutions. Steinbinder worked in the Banner Health System for more than 20 years in various roles, including service excellence administrator, patient safety officer, senior director of nursing systems, director of professional practice, and organizational development consultant. She had responsibility for patient experience, leadership development, quality improvement, root-cause analysis, instructional design, and Magnet redesignation.