INDEPENDENT OMBUDS SERVICES - Key Persons
Dr. Gardner has over thirty years' experience in medical practice as a Board certified physician in Neurological Surgery. He has served as a Clinical Instructor of Neurological Surgery at Columbia University and at UMDNJ. He is frequently engaged to conduct Independent Medical Examinations and to prepare Peer Review Reports.
Dr. Gardner was President and a Board member of the Morris County Medical Society. He also served on both the County medical society and the New Jersey Neurological Society Peer Review Committees during which time he helped resolve disputes regarding fees and practices and ethical issues.
Dr. Gardner is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Job Titles:
- Certified Public Accountant
Joe Licata is a certified public accountant (New York and New Jersey) with over twenty-five years' experience in public accounting, first with a large international firm, and then as a partner in Rayfield & Licata, where he specializes in family-owned businesses, foreign-owned and domestic businesses, and the individuals who own them, and in the area of taxation.
His range of professional services for businesses includes organization structuring, cost reduction programs, and buying and selling businesses.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution
Julie Denny spent more than fifteen years in the corporate world before translating her business skills into a full time mediation career. Directing the marketing, business development and product development processes for a series of news services at Dow Jones, McGraw-Hill and the Associated Press, Denny managed disparate populations of editors, technical geniuses and marketing and sales staff, learning first hand how critical effective communication is to the workplace.
In her work, Julie negotiated dozens of intellectual property contracts with publishers, software developers and information service providers. As director of marketing activities, she worked with many different advertising agencies, developing creative marketing strategies and using the Internet, then in its infancy, to deliver marketing messages and products and services to a variety of customers.
Kharyne Neptune is a skilled negotiator and mediator with decades of business and professional experience in healthcare and professional liability claims, and on-the-ground knowledge and understanding of African and Caribbean cultures.
Kharyne has over twenty years of supervisory and managerial experience at American International Group, Inc. (AIG). As its Assistant Vice President, Structured Claims Department, she led an initiative to increase use of tax-free annuities to provide claimants with periodic settlement payments, during which time sales of its tax-free annuities grew to over $640 million dollars. She managed a staff of three employees and 170 independent brokers, created an employee and sales-force recognition program, designed and published a quarterly newsletter, collaborated with outside counsel on litigation, and monitored and influenced legislation impacting tax-free annuities.
Kharyne is a credentialed and experienced mediator. In addition to her direct business experience Kharyne has education and training in the area of negotiation and conflict resolution. She received certification from the Harvard Negotiation Program, and New Jersey and New York Mediation Programs. Additionally, she has lectured at various conferences and events on the topic of conflict resolution and volunteered her services at various programs including assisting train new mediators through the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators and Rockland County's Community Mediation Program.
Kharyne has served actively with various trade and community organizations. Currently she volunteers as a Board Member for Casa Morris and Sussex County; Greater Newark Charter School; Morris County Urban League, Strategic Planning Committee and their Youth Program and is an active member of the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators.
Marianne McConnell is a registered nurse and a lawyer, most recently specializing in healthcare facilities evaluation and licensing at the New Jersey Department of Health. She is a very experienced and accredited professional mediator. Among her other numerous and wide-ranging activities, Marianne produced and hosted a public affairs cable TV program, "Women and a Few Good Men."
Job Titles:
- Principal in New Jersey Life & Casualty Associates, Inc
Since 1956 Mark Byron has been a principal in New Jersey Life & Casualty Associates, Inc., specializing in wealth preservation, business succession planning and employee benefits. He works with clients' other professional advisors to create, preserve and transfer net worth. For closely-held corporate clients he provides business succession planning, qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, and other selective employee benefits. Byron and his associates are affiliated with ValMark Securities, Inc., one of the most respected broker-dealer firms in the insurance and investment industry.
Byron has been president of the Greater Newark Chapter, Chartered Life Underwriters (CLU), and chairman of its Ethics Committee. He is a life member of the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) and has been a member of the Association of Advanced Life Underwriters (AALU) and has been a member of the board of directors and national chairman of AALU's Political Involvement Committee. He has been a member of the Society of Financial Service Professionals Insurance Illustration Task Force.
Michael Burns' entire 38-year career has been in business management specializing in corporate safety and security. Most recently Burns has been engaged in security consulting assisting major corporations. Prior to his retirement, he served as Director of Security for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation where his responsibilities included physical, technical, executive and information security as well as meeting security, background screening and compliance with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA) and plant security. He managed a departmental budget exceeding $10 million and a staff of 20 plus and additional 60 contract personnel. He developed numerous and varied requests for proposals to engage outside firms for security services, projects and operations, such as contract guard force services, lock and key, technical security, background screening, consulting services, and investigating and meeting security.
N. Janine Dickey, Esq., APM, is an Accredited Professional Mediator who devotes her professional practice exclusively to Mediation, Arbitration and Ombuds Services, with a focus on employment, commercial, small business disputes. She is a Certified Mediator with the United States Federal District Court of New Jersey and on the New Jersey State Judiciary's Civil Mediation Roster. Ms Dickey has 30 years of experience in alternative dispute resolution, commercial litigation and business consulting. She began her legal career in commercial litigation and employment law with Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard PA and later at Wolff & Samson PC. Ms Dickey also ran her own law firm in Martinsville, NJ, and served for several years as General Counsel to a start-up biometric-tech firm. On the business side, Ms Dickey's experience includes running a family business manufacturing, marketing, and retailing sporting goods. She is a member of the Legal Bars of New Jersey and New York.
Working to maximize the benefits of alternative dispute resolution for organizations, businesses and individuals, Ms Dickey serves as Chair of the Dispute Resolution Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association and works closely with attorney advocates and the Judiciary. She is an active member of New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators (NJAPM), Garibaldi American Inn of Court for ADR and the Association for Conflict Resolution- Greater New York Chapter.
An expert on mediation and negotiation techniques, Ms Dickey is a frequent lecturer and instructor and has authored numerous publications. She serves as a state approved mediation mentor in the Superior Court, supervises apprentice mediators in Small Claims Court and Superior Court- Special Civil Part and was a Co-founder and Co-Chair of NJAPM's Employment Mediation Interest Group.
Ms Dickey is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Virginia with a BA in Psychology, and law degree from Georgetown University. She is a member of the UVA Alumni Association and Georgetown Alumni Association, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Ms Dickey is active in local civic organizations. She served many years on the Bridgewater Township Municipal Planning Board and has held numerous leadership positions within her church and municipality. She also provides legal, consulting and ombudsman services to religious and non-profit organizations.
In her "free time," Ms Dickey enjoys boat cruising with family and friends on eastern Lake Ontario, spending time with her husband and adult children in New York City and Charlottesville, Virginia, and taking long hikes with her Blue Merle Rough Collie and American Water Spaniel.
Bill Thompson has had several varied and successful careers, most recently for a decade as a consultant on healthcare quality improvement at a major hospital. Before that, at a large corporation as a senior executive in marketing and government regulatory affairs. After receiving his Ph.D. in Geophysics from MIT, Thompson's first career included providing systems engineering support for the NASA manned space flight program, and heading corporate teams to solve telecommunications problems at Bell Labs and in Iran.