Agenda – Day 1

Debbie Carroll, Vice President of MusiCares® Health & Human Services, is responsible for developing, implementing, and overseeing MusiCares’ programs and services nationally. Under her leadership, MusiCares has succeeded in substantially increasing their programs and services from 230 clients and $236,000 distributed in 1998 to approximately 8,600 clients and more than $6.5 million distributed in 2018. Carroll was instrumental in launching MusiCares’ first Preventative Healthy Essentials Clinic. The program has expanded to over 300 annual events nationwide that address medical issues, dental and hearing health, addiction recovery services, and educational topics of interest to music people.

Previously, Ms. Carroll worked in various capacities in the health care industry, ranging from hospital settings to private practice. Carroll was instrumental in developing substance abuse treatment programs in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Georgia.

She currently serves on the ACM Lifting Lives and Leadership Music Board of Directors and serves on the Cumberland Heights and Music Health Alliance Advisory Boards.

Reenie Collins is the CEO of Health Alliance for Austin Musicians – a unique organization that is both a cultural support and a healthcare safety net provider for Austin’s low income, working musicians. A seasoned executive with more than 25 years’ experience in the healthcare arena working in hospital systems and community health. During the course of her 25-year career she has a proven track record of leading teams through successful change and developing strong community and patient mission driven programs. During her tenure, HAAM has received multiple community awards and has been locally and nationally recognized for both fundraising and operational excellence. She is recognized as a strong connector of people and contributor to the community in many different areas. An Austin native, Reenie grew up listening to music in many of Austin’s iconic venues and loves all types of music but especially Americana and Folk Music.

Ron Pollack served for more than three decades as the Founding Executive Director, and is currently Chair Emeritus, of Families USA — which played a leading role in securing the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He was also the Founding Chairman of Enroll America (which promoted expanded health coverage under the ACA), and he was the Founding Executive Director in the 1970s of the anti-hunger advocacy group FRAC (the Food Research and Action Center). Prior to leading Families USA he was Dean of the Antioch University School of Law.

Dr. Ying Zhen is Associate Professor of Business and Economics at Wesleyan College. Her major fields of specialization are Labor Economics and Industrial Organization and her specific research interests include Economics of Immigration and Music Business. It was her honor to work with Professor Alan B. Krueger of Princeton University on the Survey of Well-being of Musicians in the United States. She considers economics a universal science, which should be open to everyone. Her ultimate goal is to help students see the world through the eyes of an economist, making them appreciate the beauty of economics and become civilized world citizens. Economics and music are her two biggest passion of life. She is glad to be able to combine them in my career as a researcher of economics of music.

Renata Marinaro is a licensed social worker. As National Director of Health Services at The Actors Fund, she manages the Artists Health Insurance Resource Center and Entertainment Industry Health Solutions and helps manage the Samuel Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts, in partnership with Mount Sinai Doctors. Renata has created many online and print resources to help increase insurance literacy in the arts and entertainment community, including a series of online tutorials, available at http://tinyurl.com/AHIRCvideos. She is also a certified application counselor.

A native of Detroit’s East Side, B.C. Vermeersch has guided the Musicians Foundation as Executive Director since 1996. Having earned Bachelor and Master degrees from Wayne State University in Detroit, he was awarded his PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He also holds a Certificate from the Columbia University Institute for Not-for-Profit Management. His professional career has been based in New York City as an administrator of non-profit organizations, including Composer’s Forum, Greenwich House Music School and volunteering with the Washington Square Association and Washington Square Music Festival. He is a founding member of the Coalition of New York City Community Schools of the Arts and is a recipient of the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Milestone Award.

Lucinda Halstead is the Medical Director of the MUSC Evelyn Trammell Institute for Voice and Swallowing and Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Halstead is the Laryngologist for the internationally renowned Spoleto Festival USA. She publishes and lectures nationally and internationally on the topics of vocal and performing artist health, singing voice disorders, vocal dystonia, cough, laryngopharyngeal reflux disorders and pediatric performing voice. She is President Elect of the Performing Arts Medicine Association. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Voice and is a member of The Voice Foundation, Colligium Medicorum Theatri, and the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology, amongst others.

Ralph Manchester is Vice Provost and Director of the University Health Service and Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester. Ralph is currently President of the Performing Arts Medicine Association. From 2006 to 2015 he served as Editor of Medical Problems of Performing Artists, and he remains on the editorial board. He is an author or co-author of over 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Ongoing areas of interest include college student mental health and the musculoskeletal problems of music students. Dr Manchester continues to see patients daily in addition to teaching medical students and residents along with carrying out his administrative duties.

Randall Dick is a Fellow and former Board of Trustees member of the American College of Sports Medicine. He worked for twenty years with the NCAA managing its sports medicine and injury prevention programs, including the development and application of two generations of the NCAA Injury Surveillance System. He serves on the US Lacrosse Sports Science Committee and has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and multiple book chapters on a variety of sports medicine issues. Randy leads Athletes and the Arts, an initiative that works to integrate sports medicine principles and wellness into the performing arts, as a current project. In 2008, he joined Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, where he worked in a Real World Evidence Center of Excellence developing research applications for large electronic health records. In 2018, he joined IBM Watson Health as Director of Client Services for Treatment Pathways, a tool allowing researchers to quickly analyze millions of claims and medical record data.

As FMC’s director, Kevin Erickson works at the intersection of music, community organizing, and policy, working to advance the interests of the musician community on the issues that impact their lives and livelihoods. His experience spans the full range of music culture at the ground level, from community radio to live show booking and promotion to brick & mortar music retail management. Before joining FMC’s team in 2012, he directed All-ages Movement Project, a national non-profit network of all-ages music venues and youth music programs. He has contributed opinion pieces to outlets as disparate as The Nation and Pitchfork, and remains active as a musician and record producer, operating Swim-Two-Birds recording studio in DC.

Joan Alker is the Executive Director and a Co-Founder of the Center for Children and Families (CCF), and a Research Professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. Her work focuses on health coverage for low-income children and families, with an emphasis on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Two of her most recent reports examine the role of Medicaid in rural areas and the nation’s progress on covering children. She has authored numerous reports and studies on a range of issues including Medicaid waivers, premium assistance, and was the principal investigator of a multi-year study on Florida’s Medicaid program. A frequent speaker and commentator, Alker has twenty-five years of experience working on issues affecting low-income families. She holds a Master of Philosophy in politics from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and a Bachelor of Arts with honors in political science from Bryn Mawr College.

Sabrina Corlette is a research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. She directs research on health reform issues and has published dozens of articles on the Affordable Care Act, private health insurance and coverage. She has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and is frequently quoted in the news media. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty in 2010, Ms. Corlette was Director of Health Policy Programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families, served as an attorney at the law firm Hogan Lovells, and worked as a legislative assistance on the U.S. Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Andy Blackman Hurwitz works as a consultant in the music & media worlds helping bands, brands and startups. His background includes jobs as a music attorney, general manager of an independent record label (knitting factory), a major label (columbia jazz) and his own label (ropeadope). After selling his label and moving from New York to Philly he began to teach entrepreneurship and the arts at Drexel, Temple and the University of the Arts where he created the Music, Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology major. He left he teaching post to get back into the music business to work for Snarky Puppy where he went on to win 3 Grammys as the President of their music company and started the GroundUP festival. He is now the executive director of the non-profit he created, 30amp.org, and dedicates 40 hours a week to this company while juggling other clients.

Renata Marinaro is a licensed social worker. As National Director of Health Services at The Actors Fund, she manages the Artists Health Insurance Resource Center and Entertainment Industry Health Solutions and helps manage the Samuel Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts, in partnership with Mount Sinai Doctors. Renata has created many online and print resources to help increase insurance literacy in the arts and entertainment community, including a series of online tutorials, available at http://tinyurl.com/AHIRCvideos. She is also a certified application counselor.

Randall Dick is a Fellow and former Board of Trustees member of the American College of Sports Medicine. He worked for twenty years with the NCAA managing its sports medicine and injury prevention programs, including the development and application of two generations of the NCAA Injury Surveillance System. He serves on the US Lacrosse Sports Science Committee and has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and multiple book chapters on a variety of sports medicine issues. Randy leads Athletes and the Arts, an initiative that works to integrate sports medicine principles and wellness into the performing arts, as a current project. In 2008, he joined Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, where he worked in a Real World Evidence Center of Excellence developing research applications for large electronic health records. In 2018, he joined IBM Watson Health as Director of Client Services for Treatment Pathways, a tool allowing researchers to quickly analyze millions of claims and medical record data.

Gloria McCormick assumed the duties of Local 802 Health Benefits Plan Administrator in January.

Ms. McCormick has worked at Local 802 since 1988. She has served as Sick Pay and Hospitalization Fund Administrator, Broadway Payroll Administrator and Executive Secretary.

Dr. Janice Johnston is the co-founder and medical director of Redirect Health. Redirect Health helps small businesses, associations and individuals to achieve meaningful, affordable access to healthcare through direct primary care in all 50 states, 24/7 telemedicine care in English and Spanish, in office primary care at $0 cost, routine lab work, chiropractic care, fair price negotiation and outreach programs. Also, an avid blues fan, she blends her artistic and professional passions by chairing The Blues Foundation’s HART Fund. The fund helps musicians with medical, dental and funeral expenses and actively advocates for fair pricing for services. She also spearheads many proactive preventative health screening events throughout the year at music festivals and conferences

Jennifer Roe is the Director of Operations at Folk Alliance International (FAI), which is the world’s largest folk music member service organization and annual industry conference. Founded in 1989, FAI is a national arts service organization with a mission to preserve, promote, and present folk music through education, networking, and advocacy as well as field research and professional development. Jennifer started working for the organization in 2013 when FAI moved from Memphis to Kansas City. She is responsible for leading the FAI staff and contractors in planning the annual conference and the day-to-day operations of the office.

Joseph Petrucelli is the Executive Director at the Jazz Foundation of America. Changes in the music industry have left many behind including underground legends, session players and even the big names themselves. When age, illness, or disaster threatens a long career, many have nowhere to turn. These musicians have been saving us with their music our entire lives and are dignified people who never think to ask for help. The lifesaving programs of the Jazz Foundation of America turn despair into hope. JFA provides emergency assistance, preventing homelessness with housing assistance, provide pro bono medical care and financial support that keeps the lights on and food on the table. They also create work opportunities and work in partnership with agencies spanning the arts, medicine, education and social services.

He was previously the Senior Associate at Biondolillo Associates.