Dr. Lauren Brand has served as Mind OC’s Director of Operations since September 2019. Dr. Brand is a psychologist specializing in business operations. She has over 20 years of experience working in the public and private sectors, including developing and directing programs that provide mental healthcare, social services and addictions treatment.
Prior to her work with Mind OC, Dr. Brand served as Chief Operating Officer for Jewish Federation & Family Services, Orange County, including a period as Interim President & CEO, smoothly guiding the organization through transition while maintaining a corporate culture of growth and innovation. With a passion for helping others, Dr. Brand enjoys mentoring, coaching, and teaching, supporting transformation and culture change for people, organizations, and systems. She holds Masters and Doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology.
Valerie Fryer, MBA has served as Mind OC’s Director of Finance from the organization’s founding to the present. Ms. Fryer has been a Principal at Miles Away Consulting since 2019. Valerie has more than 18 years of finance experience working with nonprofits & 10 years with corporate finance.
During her career, she has led all facets of operational & finance management including accounting, financials, budgets, information technology, human resources administration and audits. At OneOC, Valerie led the Business Services Dept for 12 years which was responsible for the OneOC financials, over 100 community initiative oversight & financials, 30 nonprofit accounting / bookkeeping clients and 20 corporate foundation financials.
She is well versed in all levels of government contracts and financial audits. Previously, she was the Controller for Olive Crest which provided services to care for abused and neglected children in 3 states that included mental health services, prevention, foster/adoption, and education (schools) programs. Ms. Fryer holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration.
Dr. Karen Linkins has served as Mind OC’s Chief Innovations Officer from the organization’s founding to the present. Dr. Linkins has been a Principal at Desert Vista Consulting (DVC) since 2007, where she specializes in systems transformation across health, behavioral health, and human services by combining advocacy, implementation science, and program evaluation to improve population health and advance health equity in California and nationally, using frameworks like collective impact and distributed leadership.
A recognized leader in integrated behavioral health nationally, Dr. Linkins has led more than 70 research, evaluation, technical assistance, and strategic planning projects for Federal agencies, states, foundations, health plans, community-based organizations, and clinics. Some of her current projects include: designing Sacramento’s MediCal Whole Person Care pilot that targets individuals experiencing homelessness with complex health needs, evaluating the CA Accountable Communities for Health Initiative, and designing a public-private continuum of behavioral health care in Orange County. Dr. Linkins works to develop strong strategic partnerships across safety net organizations and communities to confront and address the underlying inequities and disparities that impact population health.
Robert McCarron, D.O. completed a dual residency in internal medicine and psychiatry at Rush University and received board certification in psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine and internal medicine. While on faculty at the University of California, Davis and Irvine Schools of Medicine, he started the only two California based combined internal medicine / psychiatry residency programs. In these roles, he received grant support to create and implement a “Med Psych” curriculum that can be used in the public mental health system by psychiatry residency training programs. Dr. McCarron served as Director of the only Sacramento County Crisis Stabilization Unit and was the founding Director of Pain Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, within the UC Davis Division of Pain Medicine. Dr. McCarron is the Founding Director for the UC Davis Train New Trainers (TNT) Primary Care Psychiatry (PCP) Fellowship, which is a one-year program designed to train primary care providers in the essentials of psychiatry and pediatric behavioral health. Dr. McCarron now serves as Professor and Vice Chair at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. He serves on the ACGME Residency Review Committee for Psychiatry and is Medical Director for Mind OC.
Dr. McCarron has numerous publications in the areas of medical education, unexplained physical complaints; pain management; depression and anxiety in the primary care setting; preventive medicine; medical / psychiatric cross-disciplinary education and psychiatric integrated care. He has edited six textbooks on clinical education: three with a focus on teaching the essentials of primary care-based psychiatry, one on primary care-based pain management and the other two providing an innovative approach to teaching psychiatrists the essentials of preventive and collaborative care medicine. He spends much of his time consulting on how best to provide “cross disciplinary training” at the interface of primary care medicine, chronic pain management and psychiatry, and is a national thought leader in psychiatric integrated education care. Dr. McCarron served as Co-Chair for a statewide project that supported the integration of primary care and behavioral health for several counties in California and currently serves as an appointed member of the California Department of Health Care Services Behavioral Health Advisory Committee. Dr. McCarron also has extensive clinical and research experience in tele-psychiatry consultation.
Dr. McCarron is a past president for the Central California Psychiatric Society, California Psychiatric Association and the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry. He is the Medicine / Psychiatry Section editor for Current Psychiatry; an Associate Editor for The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders; and serves on the editorial board the journal of Mental Illness. Dr. McCarron has received recognition for his national leadership and expertise in cross disciplinary medical / psychiatric integrated education from the UC Davis School of Medicine Vice Chancellor; the American College of Physicians; the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry; the Academy of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry; The American College of Psychiatrists; the American Psychiatric Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Marshall Moncrief is the Chief Executive Officer of Mind OC, a not-for-profit organization created to advance the community-wide mental health collaborative known as Be Well Orange County. Marshall also serves as a commissioner for the Orange County Commission to End Homelessness. He is a licensed psychotherapist and holds an Executive MBA in healthcare management.
Prior to his current role with Mind OC, Marshall served as the executive clinical and administrative leader of mental health and addiction services for the Hoag Health and Providence-St Joseph Health Systems, most recently overseeing hospital and primary care services across LA, Orange County and the High Desert.
A life-long resident of Orange County, Marshall and his family live in Huntington Beach.
Nicole Ramirez, MBA MA is a Director of Quality Improvement and Network Development with over two decades of successful experience in program planning and implementation. Ms. Ramirez specializes in standing up new programs in the Behavioral Healthcare sector and has a wealth of program management experience on the public and managed care front, most recently serving in the non-profit capacity. Ms. Ramirez began her healthcare career in the children’s behavioral health clinic and administration offices for the Orange County Health Care Agency. Advancing through the agency, she served in lead roles within quality improvement and training fields, planning and implementation of the Orange County MHSA programs beginning with CSS through implementation of the Innovation department.
After completing her Master’s in Clinical Psychology and providing clinical intern services in the Children’s, TAY, and Crisis fields, she stepped into the managed care world where she held a successful Behavioral Health Management position for OC’s COHS plan. During her tenure, Ms. Ramirez completed her Master’s in Healthcare Management while leading the implementation and oversight of the behavioral health portion of Orange County’s Cal Medi-Connect program. During her career in Managed Care, she provided program management and oversight of the CMC plan, provided onboarding training to new hires to the company, responded to policy changes and requests, assisted with Board requests, held a lead role in the planning and implementation of transition from a delegated behavioral health model, served lead in Behavioral Health NCQA response and Audits, maintaining 4 stars on the BH side for the COHS plan and lead quality improvement groups. Most recently, as a Director of QI and Network Development, Nicole manages the Behavioral Health System Transformation project for Mind OC.
Stacy Skwarlo, Chief Philanthropy Officer – Stacy has been a leading fundraising professional for more than fifteen years in community based organizations and healthcare. Stacy joined Mind OC in June 2021 and serves as the chief philanthropy officer. In her role Stacy is responsible for building the philanthropic platform for Mind OC and leveraging private sector support.
Prior to joining Mind OC, Stacy was senior executive director at Hoag Hospital Foundation. At HHF, she was a key in the development and success of the Hoag Promise Campaign, a comprehensive, $627 million fundraising campaign that reached its goal 18 months ahead of its scheduled completion. In addition to healthcare fundraising, Stacy was a leader at Operation HOPE where she served as the Senior Vice President of HOPE partnerships working with Fortune 500 companies and stewarding their philanthropic investments.
Tameka Tates is currently the Director of Mobile Crisis Response, Tameka has been working in the field of Social Service for the past 21 years, starting with after school programs, moving on to group homes, level 12 and 14 children’s facilities and behavioral health programs throughout the San Diego. While gaining experience Tameka attended San Diego State University and earning a bachelor’s in criminal justice administration with the original goal of working in law enforcement. That soon changed as she continued to gain knowledge and found her passion in social services, providing services, education and guidance while working with children of all ages.
Tameka soon moved on to gain knowledge and experience of homeless services and housing working with people experiencing homelessness at PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) as Associate Director of Housing for 6 years and moving on to be Housing Manager for the San Diego Region with Telecare and Project Director at Equus overseeing the COVID-19 hotel program. While gaining hands on experience Tameka continued her education and went on to Chapman University to earn her MA in Organizational Leadership and her MS in Human Resources. Tameka continues to recognize the importance of education and is currently working on her Master’s in social work with the goal of earning her LCSW, and is excited to continue to educate, lead and learn from Be Well as she continues her position as Director of Mobile Crisis Response.
Rosie Zoll has served as MindOC’s Director of Planning since January 2020. Ms. Zoll is an experienced professional in the healthcare planning & design industry, with demonstrated success through the entire project lifecycle, from strategic space planning, design development, operational workflows, training, building activation, and stabilization.
She has over a decade of experience working in healthcare planning & development, most recently working as the Director of Transition Strategy for the new $2Billion Stanford Hospital. Prior to that project, she led all aspects of Facility Planning for the Hoag Health System in both Newport Beach and Irvine, CA.
Ms. Zoll is passionate about creating environments that truly support, nurture and inspire the people who inhabit them. Ms. Zoll holds a Masters of Science in Human-Environment Relations with a Minor in Healthcare Administration.
