TAC also has contractual relationships with a number of seasoned experts who share TAC's commitment to the needs of persons with mental illness and other disabilities.

Cohen, Martin
Martin Cohen was a co-founder of the Technical Assistance Collaborative. He has provided consultation and technical assistance to state, county, and non-profit organizations on health, mental health and human service organizations. Martin has provided system and organizational assessment, consultation, and strategic planning to over 30 state and local human service agencies. These consultations have ranged from preparation for managed care, to changes in organizational structure and service system financing and development. He also consults with and provides technical assistance to the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Center for Mental Health Services on Medicaid and related public managed care strategies.

Croze, Collette
Colette Croze specializes in the development of state-level strategies to develop and implement options for state-operated services competing in a managed care environment. From a national perspective, she can interpret federal and state statutes and regulations that impact the implementation of managed care financing approaches. Colette's public experience includes serving in senior management positions in mental health agencies in Missouri and Illinois. In Illinois, she was responsible for state facilities serving almost 6000 individuals.

Curtis, Laurie
Laurie Curtis is a nationally respected consultant and educator focusing on best practices in community mental health services and supports for people with psychiatric disabilities. She emphasizes recovery-oriented policy, service and support practices, and evaluation, and has special expertise in consumer empowerment, consumers as colleagues, and alternatives to coercive treatment. Laurie is an expert in program development and evaluation; curriculum design and delivery; development of human resource training, supervision, and competency standards; case consultation; and facilitation and consensus building. Before becoming an independent consultant, for 11 years Laurie was director of training and program development at the Center for Community Change through Housing and Support. There, she provided technical assistance and training throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Dennison, Rusty
President and founder of Parker Dennison, Rusty has 23 years clinical, administrative, and consulting experience in a variety of behavioral health and child welfare settings. Rusty has assisted providers, governmental authorities and managed care organizations in over 40 states providing training, consulting, project management, and technical assistance in care/utilization management, provider network readiness, affiliation/partnering, accountability systems, quality improvement, restructuring, strategic planning, and management/leadership re-engineering. He has been a central team member in seven public sector managed care implementations and numerous local/regional projects including mental health, substance abuse and child welfare service areas. A long time affiliate of the non-profit trade association, the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, Rusty has specialized in public sector and community based service systems.

Highland, James
James Highland is a health economist focusing on decision support for pricing, contracting, strategic planning and capital budgeting for community oriented risk-bearing healthcare organizations. He has extensive experience with rate development; payment systems and incentives risk bearing; investment decisions; and cost-effectiveness modeling. Recently, Jim has been doing financial analysis and modeling for county-sponsored MCOs participating in the mandatory managed care program in Pennsylvania. This includes rate development and negotiation; RFP response; risk modeling, budgeting; claims analysis and reporting; developing provider payment methods; and evaluation of risk-sharing arrangements. Jim holds a Ph.D. in health economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and has taught health economics and health care financial management at the Wharton School.

Hodge, Martha
Martha Curtis Hodge consults with mental health organizations throughout the United States. Martha has over thirty years of experience planning and directing systems that serve adults with severe mental illnesses and emotional problems. She has also worked in a state hospital in Georgia, directed a psychosocial program in downtown Atlanta, assisted in the planning and implementation process to downsize state hospitals, provided direct case management services, and helped develop managed care systems. Martha has authored at least 10 publications and has received numerous awards for excellence in service.

Human Services Research Institute, Inc.
HSRI is a non-profit corporation that provides strategic planning, system evaluation, and policy-oriented technical assistance to federal, state, and local human services organizations. H. Stephen Leff, Ph.D., and Virginia Mulkern, Ph.D., two principles of HSRI, have collaborated with TAC on a number of state-level behavioral health needs assessment and system plan development activities. HSRI has designed a dynamic needs assessment simulation model (Mental Health Systems Strategic Planning Model), which has been used effectively in eight states. The model assesses demand for services; obtains profiles of people needing services; determines the array of services needed; estimates costs of services and potential funding mechanisms; and supports the development of strategic implementation plans.

HSRI is the national Technical Assistance Center for The Evaluation of Adult Mental Health Systems Change. HSRI is also expert in quality improvement, outcome and performance measurement, cultural competence, and human resource development. Recently, HSRI functioned as a Coordinating Center for two Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services multi-site studies, one on Medicaid behavioral health managed care for vulnerable populations and one on employment interventions for persons with mental illness. HSRI also has extensive experience in developmental disabilities, child and youth services and family support strategies.

Jackson, Evette
Evette Jackson is a former Senior Program Associate with TAC. Currently Ms. Jackson is an independent consultant working in the District of Columbia with the Child and Family Services Agency and the DC Department of mental health to improve the accessibility, timeliness, and quality of mental health services to children, adolescents and families served by the child welfare system. While with TAC, Evette worked with local mental health authorities in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina on projects ranging from strategic plans to assessment of mental health carve-outs. She has completed system-wide and program-specific reviews in several localities in Ohio, Georgia, and Minnesota. With her extensive experience in mental health policy, program development, and operations management, Evette brings a unique perspective in both governmental and private not-for-profit arenas. Before joining TAC, Evette worked as a Community Systems Specialist with the New York State Office of Mental Health Central Regional Office, and was also the Director of Program Operations for The Center for Mental Health, Inc., and Director of Community Services for the Commission on Mental Health Services, both in the District of Columbia.

Lin, Alice
Alice Lin specializes in program evaluation, organizational restructuring, and program implementation and reimbursement systems. She brings to this task more than 30 years of experience in child welfare, mental health and developmental disabilities administration, policy research and analysis, and clinical practice and supervision. Alice assisted state and local governments and others in structuring managed care approaches to the administration and delivery of services, especially in children's services. Recently, she supported the states of Iowa, New York, Ohio, North Carolina, and Oklahoma in expanding services for children who are at risk of out-of-home placement.

John O'Brien has extensive experience in the design and implementation of system reform initiatives for individuals with mental illness, individuals in recovery and the child welfare and juvenile justice population.  He has provided consultation to over 20 states and seven local human services authorities.  He has worked with Medicaid, child welfare, state behavioral health, and mental retardation authorities.  His primary focus is developing managed care designs, assisting states in developing federal Medicaid Waivers, state plan amendments, managed care vendor procurements and financing mental health, substance abuse and child welfare services and qualitative and quantitative research of children's behavioral health systems.  John is a former manager in the government service practice of KPMG Peat Marwick, manager at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Mental Retardation, Associate Director for the Illinois Legislative Commission on Mental Health, Mental Retardation, Alcohol and Substance Abuse, and was a program manager at Thresholds, Inc. in Chicago.

Ouellete, Richard is a senior health care consultant with more than 20 years of operations and consulting management experience. He has extensive experience in creating and managing large databases of Medicaid service encounters and paid claims and other related utilization data used for behavioral health systems analysis, planning, resource deployment, and evaluation. Richard worked with TAC in the District of Columbia to analyze Medicaid data, create consumer and provider profiles of service utilization and costs, and to conduct financial analyses related to the development of a Medicaid Rehabilitation Option Plan. His expertise includes: health system integration and consolidation; new business development; information system planning; executive and clinical information systems development; operations management; and operations analysis and improvement. Richard is an Adjunct Professor for Healthcare Finance and Information Systems at Assumption College, Worcester, MA.

Parker, Susan
Susan Parker is Executive Vice President and co-founder of Parker Dennison. She has significant experience with the fiscal and operational aspects of publicly funded community behavioral health systems, having worked with providers, state and local funding authorities and managed care organizations in more than 40 states. Ms. Parker focuses on assisting with design and implementation of new and re-structured service, reimbursement, regulatory and managed care initiatives, bringing her extensive experience with provider operations for a practical approach. Ms. Parker has extensive hands-on experience assisting providers in making the operational adjustments necessary for successful performance in fee for service Medicaid rehabilitation environment having worked with hundreds of providers in large group training and individual provider site visit settings. She is a certified public accountant and has a Master’s from the University of Denver.

Smith, Alicia D.
Alicia D. Smith is Deputy National Program Director of Resources For Recovery: State Practices That Expand Treatment Opportunities, a national grant program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation managed by TAC. Alicia has extensive experience in Medicaid reimbursement, coverage and policy matters with particular concentration in the areas of federal Medicaid program compliance; state and other local public program compliance; Medicaid program redesign; benefit enhancement and maximization of program efficiencies. Prior to joining TAC, Alicia worked as a Health Care Consultant with one of the nation’s largest law firms specializing in community-based behavioral health care. She also worked as a Medicaid health administrator with the State of Ohio. Alicia has over 10 years of solid health care experience and has also worked with professional trade associations, community health centers, primary care providers and a university medical system.

Wood, Steve A.
Steve Wood is a managing partner with Healthcare Perspective, an independent consulting firm that specializes in healthcare information management systems consulting. Steve has an extensive background in healthcare information systems, management consulting, and financial management. Over the past 25 years, his range of experience included: Chief Financial Officer for Acute Care Hospitals, Director of Information Services, National Implementation Support Manager of a hospital information systems vendor, and ten years as a consultant dealing with a host of large projects. Steve is a fellow in the HFMA Society and is active in HIMSS both nationally and in the Ohio Affiliated HIMSS Chapters. He also served for several years on the IDEAS User Group Board of Directors, first as the Northeast Regional Director and then as Vice President, President Elect, and President. IDEAS represented approximately 120 hospitals in the United States and several other countries.