Jane Damren, MSN
Jane is a Project Associate at SPEC Associates. She specializes in quality improvement in behavioral health care and is an expert in ACT Programs, Customer Service Programs and Family Psycho-education Models. She holds a BSN and MSN from Wayne State University. Jane’s Master’s degree is in Children and Adolescent Mental Health Nursing. She also received the status of Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality granted by the National Association for Healthcare Quality. Jane is the Director of Quality Improvement for Northeast Guidance Center, a community-based mental health organization serving the greater Detroit area. She has 27 years of experience in behavioral health care and substance abuse treatment, both in community mental health and acute care in-patient settings. Her expertise includes medical records review audits, satisfaction surveys, risk management analysis, recipient rights and customer service, staff development, education and training, and policy and procedure development including external audits and surveys for licensing with the State of Michigan and accreditation both with the JCAHO and CARF. Jane is on the Detroit Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency Taskforce for developing standards of best practice for mentally ill adults and adults with development disabilities. She also serves on the Recipient Rights Advisory Board for St. John Detroit Riverview Hospital and is coordinating a pilot program for Self-Determination with mentally ill adults.
Brian Dates, M.A.
Brian is a Project Associate at SPEC Associates. He specializes in performance, quality and outcome monitoring in human service programs. Brian holds an M.A. in Applied Developmental Psychology from Oakland University and a B.A. in Psychology from Wayne State University. Brian is the Director of Evaluation and Research at Southwest Counseling Solutions and also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan. He has evaluated many programs in mental health, substance abuse, juvenile justice, and corrections, with a special interest in programs serving persons who are homeless. He has both presented and published in the areas of program fidelity, application of evidence-based practices in community settings, and development of statistics to assess inter-rater agreement. Brian is an Executive Board Member of the Michigan Association for Evaluation and is the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of SPEC Associates.
Melanie Hwalek , Ph.D.
Melanie is Chief Executive Officer of SPEC Associates. She specializes in the practical application of evaluation methods to bring understanding and motivate improvement in programs for youth and for the elderly. Melanie holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Applied Social Psychology from Wayne State University. In addition to her work for the past 26 years directing evaluations for SPEC, Melanie provides training and technical assistance on the topics of program evaluation and outcome measurement. She is one of only seven professionals throughout the U.S. selected by the United Way of America for its original pool of national outcome measurement consultants. She is also a contributor to the National Institute of Medicine's Healthy People 2000 and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Evaluation Association and of the Michigan Association for Evaluation
Amy R. Juntunen, M.A.
Amy Juntunen is a Project Associate and Vice President of the Board of Directors of SPEC Associates. She specializes in survey research management. Amy holds a Master’s degree from Wayne State University in Interdisciplinary Studies. For more than 25 years, she has been involved in the field of survey research. She has designed hundreds of questionnaires for surveying a wide range of populations from pre-school children through high risk juveniles to home-bound elderly. She has surveyed executive directors of social service agencies, people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer survivors, neighborhood leaders, and runaway and homeless youth. Amy also has expertise in qualitative methods of data collection. She has conducted ethnographic case studies of a variety of programs in recreation centers, homeless shelters, health clinics and schools. She also facilitates focus group interviews with a wide range of participants. Amy has also developed "how to" manuals sharing her expertise in proper interviewing techniques.
Linda Knispel, M.A.A.
Linda is a Researcher at SPEC Associates. She specializes in ethnographic and qualitative data collection and analysis. Linda holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Michigan State University and a Master of Applied Anthropology from University of Maryland, College Park. Having facilitated focus groups, performed informal and formal interviews, conducted observations and participant-observations, and designed and administrated surveys, Linda is practiced in both quantitative and qualitative data collection. She has applied her skills to the evaluation of organizational capacity building, youth development programs, substance abuse treatment programs, and inter-organizational collaborations. Linda is a member of the American Evaluation Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the Society for Applied Anthropology.
Victoria Straub, M.A., CSSBB
Victoria is Chief Operating Officer at SPEC Associates. She specializes in process improvement, quality assurance, and evaluation systems design and management. Victoria is a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt from the American Society for Quality. She holds an M.A. in Sociology from Wayne State University (WSU), a B.S. in Management Systems from GMI Engineering and Management Institute and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Service Agency Administration from WSU. Victoria has over 10 years of experience in evaluation project management for local and national studies. She is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Association for Evaluation and of the Finance Committee of the American Evaluation Association.
Shannan McNair, Ed.D.
Shannan is a Project Associate at SPEC Associates, and an Associate Professor of Human Development and Child Studies at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She has taught in the Master’s and Doctoral programs for Early Childhood Education since 1994. Her expertise in teaching and research are science and mathematics for young children, gender studies, assessment of student learning in K-12 and higher education, educational program administration and program evaluation. Her experience includes classroom teaching, administration, research, development and evaluation. She developed assessment materials for classroom teachers, developed training workshops, made presentations nationally and internationally, and consulted locally and nationally on educational and evaluation projects. Shannan holds an Ed.D. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Michigan.
Ruth A. Mohr, Ph.D., M.P.H., B.S.N.
Ruth is a Project Associate at SPEC Associates. She specializes in evaluation and planning for health-related programs. Ruth holds a Ph.D. in Health Services Organization and Policy (University of Michigan), a Master of Public Health in Health Education (UCLA), and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (Illinois Wesleyan University). She is a Registered Nurse and a Certified Health Education Specialist. Formerly senior research scientist at the Michigan Public Health Institute, Ruth has over 35 years of experience in various areas of the health care field (including community, academic, and clinical settings). She has authored numerous evaluation reports and presentations, many with a focus on cancer control programs and inter-organization collaboration development; was a member of the CDC/ORC Macro Comprehensive Cancer Control Evaluation Task Order Advisory Committee; and co-authored Reengineering Health Care: Building on CQI. Recently, Ruth served as consultant to the Michigan State Commission on Patient Safety for the development of the report to Governor Granholm and the citizens of Michigan on improving patient safety in Michigan ’s health care system and on the Rock Street Consulting Group team to evaluate medical care access projects in Michigan ’s Upper Peninsula . She currently serves as evaluation consultant to Michigan ’s Integrated Improvement Initiatives (Michigan Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services) and on SPEC’s evaluation team for the Lumina Foundation for Education’s Making Opportunity Affordable initiative.
Claudia VonDrak, M.A., Ed. Sp . Inst. Tech.
Claudia VonDrak is an Evaluation Coordinator/Researcher at SPEC Associates. She specializes in research synthesis, applied adult learning theory, Human Performance Technology and project management. In addition to her Masters in Secondary Education, Claudia holds an post-graduate Education Specialist Certificate in Instructional Technology, and will soon complete a Graduate Certificate in Gerontology, all from Wayne State University . She has 16 years of prior experience in project management, supervision and strategic planning for DaimlerChrysler. Her current work at SPEC Associates involves the coordination, management, and monitoring of a very large scale evaluation of a major policy initiative, Making Opportunity Affordable, of the Lumina Foundation for Education. Claudia is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Instructional Technology from Wayne State University, and holds a professional membership in the International Society for Performance Improvement.
Richard (Rick) Voorhees, Ph.D.
Rick is a Project Associate at SPEC Associates and principal at Voorhees Group, LLC which provides resources for organizations facing challenges in the areas of student outcomes, student retention programming, knowledge management, distance education evaluation, and assessment of learning. Rick holds a Ph.D. in Higher and Adult Education from Arizona State University. He has a wide ranging career including academic, student services, and research and policy capacities at tribal colleges, suburban community colleges, inner-city colleges, rural comprehensive universities, major research universities, governing boards and at the national policy level. Rick is past president of the Association for Institutional Research, and is an active contributor to the literature on strategic planning, student finances, and evaluation of programs to increase success of low-income students and students of color.
Bob Williams, BSc (Hons)
Bob Williams is Project Associate at SPEC Associates. Bob is best known for his synthesis of systems, evaluation, organizational development, and action research concepts and approaches. He is known in international evaluation circles through his evaluations, his work within the Australasian Evaluation Association and the American Evaluation Association, and his contributions to a range of Internet discussion groups including Evaltalk . He lectures and provides workshops on an international scale, and has contributed to many publications and books including the American Evaluation Association's monograph "Systems Concepts in Evaluation: An Expert Anthology," and "Evaluation - South Asia " for UNICEF. He is on the editorial advisory boards of the American Journal of Evaluation and New Directions in Evaluation. He is currently the Chair of the American Evaluation Association's International Committee.