Officers
LAURA M. CRIDDLE
PhD RN TCRN FAEN
Chief Clinical Officer & Lead Nurse Planner
Dr. Criddle's passions are emergency, trauma, neuro, transport, and critical care. She is a nationally registered paramedic and has been board certified in emergency nursing (adult and pediatric), trauma nursing, orthopedic nursing, medical-surgical nursing, gerontological nursing, critical care (adult and pediatric), neuroscience nursing, stroke nursing, flight nursing, and nursing professional development. Laura holds advanced practice certifications as an adult acute care clinical nurse specialist and as a critical care clinical nurse specialist.
Dr. Criddle has been a clinical nurse specialist since 1990, practicing as an emergency, trauma, flight, or neuroscience CNS at 6 health care organizations across the country. Throughout her career, Laura has cared for neonatal, pediatric, adult, and geriatric populations and has published over 100 journal articles, books, and book chapters covering a wide range of topics. She has been an editorial board member for the Journal of Trauma Nursing, the Journal of Emergency Nursing, the Advanced Journal of Emergency Nursing. Dr. Criddle is a fellow of the Academy of Emergency Nursing and former chair of the Academy. Laura has held academic appointments at 4 universities and colleges and is the co-founder of TCAR Education Programs where she currently serves as a faculty member, clinical nurse specialist, and chief clinical officer. She has an extensive history of speaking to health care audiences across the U.S. and in several countries around the world.
Chief Learning Officer Bio
Robert Brock
PhD Candidate ACC PMP PMI-ACP
CEO & Chief Learning Officer
Mr. Brock serves as the company's Chief Executive and Learning Officer. He is a veteran leader who has worked with startup, mid-sized, and fortune 500 companies in business and technology. Robert began his career in industrial television where he produced, directed, and edited scores of training and informational productions for corporate and ad agency clients. For the past 20 years, Mr. Brock has served in line, executive, and consulting management positions helping organizations establish, structure, or improve their business and technology strategy, programs and operations.
Robert is certified in executive coaching, personality and leadership/team performance assessments, project management, Agile software development and is a Lean Six Sigma green belt. Mr. Brock holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and Marketing, a Master of Science in Computer Systems Design & Management and Robert is currently pursuing a doctorate in Educational Psychology. He is an ATD Master Instructional Designer and Advanced Online Learning Practitioner.
Curriculum Development
Nurse Planner Bio
Karen Ellmers
MS RN CCNS NURSE PLANNER
Karen Ellmers is a board certified clinical nurse specialist with over 35 years of nursing experience, including 30 years in critical care settings. She obtained her bachelors and masters degrees in nursing from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Karen has developed and implemented curriculum for a variety of educational offerings related to neuro trauma, critical care, and stroke. Past positions include bedside nursing in the critical care float pool, ICU Internship coordinator, stroke program coordinator, and clinical faculty at OHSU. She has been an invited speaker for regional critical care and stroke conferences. Karen’s volunteer activities include serving on the Education Approver Committee for the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses, and past Board member of the Greater Portland Chapter of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.
Kay Lee
BSN RN CEN
Palo Alto, CA
South Korean Cultural Consultant
Ms. Lee comes to TCAR Education Programs as our first Cultural Consultant, responsible for shaping and customizing TCAR course content for a South Korean audience. Kay has over 34 years of nursing experience with expertise in trauma, emergency, intensive care, and acute care nursing. Ms. Lee is a 1984 graduate of the prestigious Seoul National University School of Nursing. After moving to the United States in 1985, Kay worked for years as a full-time charge nurse in the Emanual Hospital emergency department in Turlock, California.
Currently, Ms. Lee is an emergency department relief charge nurse at Stanford University Hospital in Palo Alto, California where she has been involved in many process improvement projects and is Chair of the hospital's Share Governance Council. Kay lives near Eureka, California and serves as a relief administrative supervisor at St. Joseph Hospital. She is also a clinical instructor for Redwood College's nursing program.
Operations Office Staff
Human Resources Manager Bio
Gretchen Witt
Program Operations Manager
Gretchen is our Operations Manager and Human Resources Manager. She is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of our staff and ensuring everything runs smoothly at our office. Gretchen is also in charge of making sure our tradeshows and events go off without a hitch.
Gretchen comes to us with a diverse background in bookkeeping, inventory control, event planning, and customer service. She enjoys spending time as a volunteer for several non-profit organizations and building relationships within her community.
Renee Dirks
Senior Program Coordinator
Renee works with Christine Downey to coordinate all the details of setting up and delivering a TCAR or PCAR class. Renee interfaces with our faculty, sponsoring medical facilities, and participants, to resolve scheduling, contracting, and registration issues. Renee has experience with shipping and receiving, tradeshow event coordination, and has business administration training from Western Business College.
Christine Downey
Programs Coordinator
Christine works closely with Renee Dirks to put together our classes, from first contact to conclusion. Christine also engages one-on-one with facility hosts to ensure classes run without a hitch. When any host, faculty, or student issues arise, she is ready, capable, and willing to deal with them.
Christine likes to keep fit by running and enjoys baking delicious cookies that she often brings into the office for everyone to enjoy. She has been with the company since January 2015.
Kim Gray
Staff Accountant
Kim is our staff accountant and is responsible to ensure that our day to day customers' and vendors' financial transactions are accurate and money flow is recorded and reconciled. She has over 20 years accounting experience in several different industries, including the A/P department of a large hospital, as well as over 30 years' tax experience. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and is enrolled to practice before the IRS. She is married with three children and ten grandchildren.
E-Learning & Media Development
Krisitn Knepp
Lead Designer
Kristin oversees the creation and development of all our corporate visual assets, providing a professional and unified voice for the Visionem presence. She comes to us from the in-house advertising agency for The Kroger Company, where she provided art direction and creative design for print, digital and broadcast deliverables. Kristin has a bachelor's degree in French from Portland State University and twenty years of creative strategy and design experience.
Technology
Steve von Weller
Lead Software Developer
Steve is a veteran technologist with over 30 years of software development experienced. He comes to us from ADP Dealer Services. There he worked on Automotive software applications including Manufacturing, Data Communications and the Service application. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Business administration from Portland State University. He is married with three children and two grandchildren.
Tim Moller
Software Developer
Tim is a software junkie and father of four. His passions include his family, Japanese language and cuisine, anime, writing, C++ game development in the Unreal engine, and 3D design. He loves all things electronic, and has always had a deep fascination with how things work starting with the very first line of Transformers toys, and manifesting in him being a self-taught, highly-motivated software engineer and IT specialist. Tim has been working with programming, computers, networking, and helpdesk support since 2000. His recent projects include custom software solutions for customer / client management and scheduling systems.
