Management

Kevin Silver, M.D., Chief Executive Officer. Kevin is an active, practicing cardiologist, specializing in interventional, nuclear and clinical practice. He is an Associate Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine at the Northeast Ohio University College of Medicine. Kevin clearly understands, first hand, the many obstacles healthcare human resource professionals face as they try to find, attract and retain quality talent. He is intensely interested in developing meaningful strategies that can be used to enhance service delivery and improve patient outcomes.

Greg Lawton, President. Greg brings thirty years of healthcare management experience to Avesta. He is focused on developing systems and procedures to maximize human performance within the healthcare industry. As the leader of the Avesta team, he is committed to growing long-term relationships with forward-thinking industry leaders.

Mark G. Gardner, Vice President. Mark is founder and CEO of our sister company, Avatar Management Services. Since 1992, Avatar has helped dozens of world-leading organizations achieve improved results in safety, sales, productivity, quality control, compliance and profitability. Avatar has touched the lives of several million people. Mark is a noted expert in workplace safety design and change management. Mark is focused on developing creative solutions to the most vexing human performance problems in all types of organizations.

Tara Weber, M.A., Director of Performance Development. Tara managed the development of the first comprehensive inventories of job-related competency assessments for the medical transportation industry. Tara develops custom performance-enhancing solutions for our clients, including policies, procedures and processes such as job-skills training, selection and hiring systems, orientation programs and recruitment strategies.

Our Team

We have great people with great values and we truly appreciate that every new innovation that we bring to our clients has been powered by our people. Not ordinary people, but individuals committed to personal values that drive them to make a difference for our clients and their employees. We exist to help you achieve more.

Brian G. Whitaker, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management at Morehead State University and a Performance Consultant at Avesta Systems. He has conducted several large scale research projects centered on employee selection, performance appraisal and feedback, and performance measurement systems. His work has been published in Journal of Management, Behavior Research Methods, and Computers in Human Behavior. Brian has specialized knowledge related to healthcare issues and healthcare employee performance. Specifically, he has conceived, designed, and implemented national research programs investigating hand hygiene compliance in hospital and clinical settings.

Jessica McKinney, M.S., is an Instructional Designer and Project Manager for Avesta. Jessica develops educational curricula, training programs and employee development strategies, all targeted to each client's specific needs. Like all Avesta strategies, she develops outcome based strategies, tied to enhancing our clients' organizational performance. Jessica's experience is heavily concentrated in the healthcare field.

Jeffrey Briks, M.S., is a Performance Consultant for Avesta. Jeff develops custom selection and hiring systems, survey designs and oversees most of our data analyses functions. Jeff has studied numerous jobs and industries, with a focus on transportation and healthcare.