2020 Presentations

James Fiorenzo, MBA, brings more than 40 years of business management experience in health care to the OPEN MINDS team. For OPEN MINDS customers, he brings a wealth of experience in the mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships, long-term care systems development, hospital administration, and pharmacy management.

Prior to joining OPEN MINDS, Mr. Fiorenzo served as the President of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Hamot Hospitals. Mr. Fiorenzo was responsible for managing the enterprise of over 3,000 employees and $550 million in annual revenue.

Over the course of five years, Mr. Fiorenzo was the lead on three hospital acquisitions and the acquisition of multiple physician practices. He also led the initiative to acquire and integrate the largest provider of behavioral health in northwestern Pennsylvania into the UPMC system.

During his tenure, Mr. Fiorenzo expanded philanthropic giving to the organization through a revamped development department, managing more than $25 million in assets. He also developed one of the first school-based primary care programs, as well as creating a psychiatric primary care program.

Prior to UPMC, Mr. Fiorenzo served as the chief operating officer and executive vice president of Hamot Medical Center. Mr. Fiorenzo was responsible for the enterprise, enhancing system revenues by 40% over a five-year period. He was responsible for a major efficiency and operational overhaul of the inpatient services of the hospital, saving $12 million. He also developed programs that resulted in a 15% increase in regional referrals to organization and grew its outpatient service volumes by 30%.

Before his time at Hamot Medical Center and UPMC, Mr. Fiorenzo was the founder and president of Great Lakes Home Healthcare Services and of Bayside Pharmacy and Physician Supply. Mr. Fiorenzo was responsible for organizing and creating the first hospital-based home care company. He grew the organization into a $25 million regional home health care company with five regional branches. The organization exceeded all budgeted goals and grew to provide a comprehensive service array of nursing, medical equipment, infusion therapy, and clinical services with more than 150 employees.

Mr. Fiorenzo earned his Master of Business Administration from Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. He earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Pharmacy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Kiara S. Kuenzler, Psy.D., LP, is President and CEO of Jefferson Center for Mental Health, a non-profit, community focused provider of mental health and substance use disorder services in Colorado. Jefferson Center serves more than 30,000 children, individuals, and families each year through prevention, early intervention, treatment, and recovery services. Dr. Kuenzler is a licensed Psychologist and received her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver in Colorado, followed by a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Colorado Medical School, in Administration and Evaluation Psychology.

In addition to her more than 10 years of experience in health care administration, quality, and program evaluation, Dr. Kuenzler spent many years providing direct clinical services and teaching at the University of Colorado, Denver. In her current role, Dr. Kuenzler brings a fierce passion and vision for a healthy community, where mental health and substance use matters and care is accessible to all. She seeks community partnerships and innovative solutions to meet the growing needs of the people served and drives excellence in care to promote wellbeing and thriving communities.

Bruce L. Bird joined Vinfen in 2003 as COO, and has served as President and CEO since 2010. Vinfen is a large non-profit community behavioral health and disability service company, which in fiscal year 2019 provided services to about 9,000 individuals with a budget of $188 million and a staff of more than 3,600 throughout locations in Eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Dr. Bird lists several areas of focus at Vinfen, including developing an Innovation Center which has established and is continuing to operate a community behavioral health home with sustained year over year growth in funding though the Massachusetts Duals Demonstration program. Dr. Bird also participated with academic institutions (including Harvard and Dartmouth) and software companies in four publicly and nine privately funded technology evaluation projects and partnered with seven other community organizations and contracting with 14 healthcare ACO/MCO systems to provide health home care coordination services in the new Massachusetts Medicaid Healthcare reform program.

Dr. Bird serves on numerous statewide policymaking and provider organizations and is active in legislative and policy advocacy, including serving as the current vice-chair of the board of the Association of Behavioral Healthcare of Massachusetts.  He is a licensed psychologist, has served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the associate faculty of the Harvard Department of Psychiatry, and is currently involved in several formal technology research evaluation projects.

James G. Gavin is currently Senior Advisor to Community Care Behavioral Health Organization based in Pennsylvania. As President and CEO of Community Care Behavioral Health Organization, from 1999 through 2020, Mr. Gavin was responsible for all aspects of the organization’s clinical, quality, and business functions while serving as liaison to Community Care’s Board of Directors, to the Commonwealth, and to county stakeholders. Licensed as a Social Worker, Mr. Gavin has more than 40 years of progressive training and experience in behavioral health in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania including clinical through senior executive management.

Prior to joining Community Care, Mr. Gavin served as the Chief Executive Officer for Scranton Counseling Center, a comprehensive community behavioral health agency. Mr. Gavin graduated from the University of Scranton and received his Master of Managerial Science and M.S.W. from Marywood University. Mr. Gavin, is a United States Army veteran, lives with his wife in Scranton.

Current memberships and community activities include Marywood University Trustee and Treasurer, The Wright Center for Graduate Medical Education Trustee and Committee Chair, and Lackawanna County Advisory Board.

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.

Le Ondra Clark Harvey is the Chief Executive Officer of the California Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies, and the Executive Director of the California Access Coalition. Dr. Clark Harvey has previously served as Chief Consultant to the California State Assembly Committee on Business and Professions, Principal Consultant to the Senate Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development, and a health policy consultant to the office of former Senator Curren D. Price, Jr.

Prior to her work within the California Legislature, she completed her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She completed her pre-doctoral fellowship at the University of Southern California Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles Mattel Children’s Hospital. She was also a social justice fellow at the Center for Policy Analysis in San Francisco.

Dr. Clark Harvey has maintained an impressive record of leadership including serving on national and local boards including her current position on the American Psychological Association (APA), and prior positions on the Association of Black Psychologists, Sacramento County Public Health Advisory Board, Sacramento County Children’s Coalition and the Los Angeles View Park Section of the National Council of Negro Women. She is a member of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Sacramento Chapter and is a fellow of the American Leadership Forum and the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program.

Ross Robinson serves as Executive Director for Hill Country Mental Health and Developmental Disability Centers (HCMHDDC), headquartered in Kerrville, Texas.  HCMHDDC provides behavioral health and intellectual and developmental disability services as a Local Authority for 19 counties encompassing over 23,000 square miles that span from counties adjacent to Austin and San Antonio in central Texas to Del Rio on the Texas/Mexico border.

Ross holds a Master of Arts Degree in Psychology and an MBA in Healthcare Administration.  He has 43 years of service in the fields of adult and child mental health, developmental disabilities, substance abuse disorders, and juvenile corrections.  He has worked in direct service, clinical and management roles with three state psychiatric facilities and two mental health and developmental disability centers, as a facility Assistant Superintendent and Superintendent for the former Texas Youth Commission, as a facility Superintendent for the Department of Aging and Disability Services, and prior to accepting the position with Hill Country, for six years as the Director of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Policy, Disaster Behavioral Health, and Tobacco Cessation with the Department of State Health Services in Texas.

Joan Erney recently retired after over 35 years in the public behavioral health system.   Starting her career as a direct services worker in crisis intervention services in Dauphin County, she was most recently the Chief Executive Officer at Community Behavioral Health, Philadelphia’s administrative management organization for the Health Choices behavioral health Medicaid program.   During her tenure Philadelphia saw the expansion of Medicaid to over 700,000 Philadelphians.  Erney was noted for developing a collaborative approach with providers, members, advocates and system partners to effect positive change to the Philadelphia behavioral health landscape.

Under her tenure, CBH received National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) full accreditation status and launched numerous successful initiatives to improve access to and the quality of children’s services, including psychiatric residential treatment services.  CBH also developed innovative approaches to address the opioid epidemic, support individuals on the Autism spectrum, and redesign day services for persons with serious mental illness.  Pay for Performance, enhanced use and payment for evidenced based practices and the development of value- based payment models were further developed and used to impact the quality of service delivery.

Prior to her role at CBH, Erney was in senior leadership roles at SAMHSA and Community Care Behavioral Health and was the Deputy Secretary of the Office of Mental Health and Substance Use Services (OMHSAS) under the Rendell administration.   In her state role, Erney closed three state hospitals,  expanded the HealthChoices behavioral health system statewide; created a criminal justice initiative; saw the development and impact of peer services, created a robust advisory structure, and made numerous policy and program changes to enhance the services for children and their families with behavioral health challenges.  Her prior experience also includes policy and legislative work with the PA Community Providers Association (now RCPA) and CEO of Community Behavioral Health Network of PA (now Perform Care).

Joan is a graduate of Penn State University and received her JD from Widener School of Law.