JANUSSOLUTIONS.COM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Executive
- CEO of Sagis Corporation
Albert Linderman, Ph.D., is the CEO of Sagis Corporation and an Executive Consultant for JANUS Solutions. Dr. Linderman is a cultural anthropologist who has guided organization and community change, and led numerous high-profile collaborations, including city-wide multi-sectoral collaborations of residents, government, business, nonprofit, and faith communities to solve complex community issues. He currently leads the management team of Passaic County, New Jersey's Department of Human Services, while guiding a county-wide needs assessment, with an eye to the establishment of a system's-guided Collective Impact to improve quality of life for people in the County. He has previously guided collective impact initiatives in communities large and small in South Dakota and Minnesota. He also has guided leadership transitions for several major Minnesota health care organizations as well as the Alliance of Community Health Plans in Washington, D.C. Albert is an experienced practitioner of a number of disciplines and evidence-based methodologies including MIT's System Dynamics, Collective Impact, Sense-Making Methodology, and Presencing. He has served over 100 companies, academic, and religious institutions, large and small as a consultant, both domestically and internationally. Albert also has a breadth of experience in providing mentoring and guidance to more than 200 emerging leaders, including dozens of social entrepreneurs as well as emerging leaders from all sectors of community life. He is the author of numerous articles from publications as diverse as Purchasing Today, Human Resource Development International, the Journal of Nursing, the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, and an upcoming article for System Dynamics Review. He is also the author of a book on human experience, Why the World Around You Isn't as it Appears (Lindisfarne Books, 2012). Albert grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights movement and is a first-generation immigrant, both of which has shaped the trajectory of his career.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Executive
- President of Inventive Strategies LLC
Charles (Charlie) Venti is the President of Inventive Strategies LLC where he provides technical assistance to government agencies and community organizations that are focused on human services, employment and training, social entrepreneurship, revenue development, service integration and systems reform. JANUS Solutions and Inventive Strategies have formed a unique strategic alliance to bring the best of their deep experience and expertise to the public marketplace. He is also an Adjunct Professor for the Rutgers School of Social Work. He began his professional career as a VISTA Volunteer in Fulton County, Georgia (1974-1975) and later with the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (1975-2002) and was the first Division protective services caseworker to rise to the position of State Director (1998-2002) until his retirement from state service. After a fourteen-year affiliation with The Nicholson Foundation, a family foundation focused on alleviating poverty in New Jersey (2003-2016), where he was Executive Director for the last seven years, he again retired to pursue his consulting practice full time.
Charlie holds an MPA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a BA in Sociology from George Washington University. He has been an expert witness in child welfare litigation. He is a Board Member for The Family Success Institute, Advocates for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ), Kuriosity Lab, and former Board Chairman of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers (CNJG) and current advisor to the Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship Network (GCSEN), Huamin Research Center at Rutgers University, and Greater Newark Local Initiative Support Corporation.
Charlie and his wife Amy live in Fair Haven, NJ.
Dr. Lamy is a developmental and educational research psychologist with a focus on children, families and schools in poverty. She is the author of a recent book, American Children in Chronic Poverty: Complex Risks, Benefit-Cost Analyses, and Untangling the Knot, and as a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, has published and contributed to many chapters, articles and reports. She has directed several large, longitudinal studies, including a 7-year study of Head Start families and children. She has developed a system to estimate the social return on investment of poverty-fighting for the Robin Hood Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President
- Social Worker
A member of the JANUS team since 1999, Gena brings over 35 years of direct service and public policy experience to our consultancy. She is a skilled planner, administrator, manager, trainer, group facilitator, community developer and strong advocate for children and families.
Gena provides leadership for many JANUS projects in workforce development, vulnerable populations and strategic planning. She has led projects with the Hudson County Departments of Family Services and Corrections and the Essex County Workforce Investment Board and Hospital Center. On the national level, Gena has led our work with the State of Delaware ABC Welfare Reform Initiative and the National Comprehensive Center for Fathers.
As an expert in human services and management, Gena also provides strategic leadership and expertise on the children, youth, and family initiatives led by JANUS Solutions, including the Community Planning and Advocacy Council and the United Way of Greater Union County.
For over 25 years, Gena has served in key management positions in government. Beginning as a case worker for the Division of Youth and Family Services and later a supervisor, she also worked as Special Assistant to the Commissioner of the NJ Department of Human Services, where she was charged with the hands-on implementation of key state initiatives. She served as state Project Manager for the federal Family Preservation and Support Services Initiative, and as the Director of Planning and Program Development for the NJ Division of Youth and Family Services. Gena also led the Foster Care Improvement Project, a major departmental initiative to improve the quality of the state foster care system.
Gena is a licensed social worker and holds a Masters degree in social work from Rutgers University, where she also serves as adjunct professor, focusing on direct practice and community organization skill development for graduate level students. She has presented at numerous conferences on the local, state and national levels.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Executive
- Organizational Development Expert
John T. Childress is an organizational development expert with over 25 years of experience. John helped lead two major school reform initiatives for the School District of Philadelphia. He served for 6 years as an elected School Board member in East Greenwich Township, NJ. He is certified in the Balanced Scorecard strategic planning tool and has helped several non-profit organizations build and implement new strategic plans. Over the years, John has built, launched, and managed many programs for youth and families including the Food Business Pathways Program in New York City. This groundbreaking program teaches public housing residents how to build and manage sustainable food businesses which can help uplift them and their families. John has chaired many collaborations over the years and utilizes his talents to help communities.
David is a dynamic consultant who has been an invaluble member of numerous strategic planning engagements with Janus Solutions. He has led programs in both the non-profit industry and the public sector since 1980, acquiring an exceptional depth of knowledge and expertise in all areas of human services program delivery, including housing, childcare, welfare, medical assistance, entitlement programs, day programs, licensing and accreditations, transportation and family support services. David has held numerous positions within the New Jersey Department of Human Services and county government, and has also served as the Executive Director of LADACIN Network, a non-profit agency serving more than 2,500 individuals with multiple physical and developmental disabilities. In addition, David has taught Strategic Planning, Budgeting and Finance, Human Resource Management and Leadership courses at the graduate level.
Tom Blatner - CEO, Founder, President
As President and CEO of JANUS Solutions, Tom has led numerous strategic planning and management assistance projects in thirteen states, fourteen of New Jersey's twenty-one counties and several of its major cities, including initiatives with former Newark Major and now NJ Senator, Cory Booker.
Tom leads JANUS Solutions with the kind of strategic vision that has characterized all his work. The architect of the JANUS team's "Family Success platform" of services and initiatives, Tom brings to the company's efforts his lifelong passion for transforming systems to create better opportunities for children, families and their communities.
Tom has held a variety of key governmental positions and has implemented major systems reforms primarily in the areas of children and family services, welfare reform and behavioral health. He is a respected authority on all areas of service delivery and has been a member of the Human Services Transition Teams for the last four New Jersey governors. His public sector professional experiences include serving as Director of the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services, the state's child welfare agency. In this role he implemented a comprehensive restructuring of the entire state-operated child welfare system around a unified, three-tiered continuum of child protection, family preservation and support, and prevention.
Tom also established and served as Director of the Office of Policy, Planning and Advocacy in the New Jersey Department of Human Services. He was responsible for redesigning and restructuring services and personnel policies and assignments for that Department. As the Director of Policy and Planning for the Department of Human Services, he also created the County Human Service Advisory Councils, local planning bodies dedicated to identifying and meeting the needs of individuals and families within their communities.
Tom began his New Jersey government career at the Division of Mental Health and Hospitals, first as Assistant Director and then as Deputy Director and Chief Operational Officer. An ardent advocate of change, Tom designed and implemented reform of the adult and children's' mental health system around a community-based, unified service model, including the expansion of community support services and the restructuring of state psychiatric hospitals, which he supervised. Tom was also responsible for the regulation of the county-operated hospitals. In addition, he served as the Special Assistant to the Commissioner of Corrections for Juvenile Services before leaving state service to start JANUS Solutions in 1988.
Along with his professional work, Tom has served on numerous advisory groups at the state level and has enjoyed positive working relationships with key federal, state and local officials. He holds a BA from Colgate University with a major in political science, and a Master's degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.