Jeanne Hitch, MEd, MA, LPC
Board Chairperson

Jeanne is the Executive Director of the Mt. Sinai Skills and Simulation Center (MSSSC) at Case Western Reserve University. She has a Masters Degree in Counseling Human Services and Adult Education and is a licensed professional counselor with diverse experience in many areas of education, healthcare, business, and government, in non-profit and for-profit environment. A certified health care executive, she has extensive experience working with faculty in many areas to create curriculum, and twenty years developing and implementing adult educational programs including critical skills assessments and interactive curriculum. Jeanne has developed a variety of programs for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, faculty, and residents. She has also worked as a Consulting Manager in Human Capital Services in the Healthcare and Government Business Unit creating and implementing grant-funded programs and facilitating strategic planning. Jeanne has 14 years experience administering grant funded-programs with 23 successful years initiating new programs and reinventing existing programs to improve outcomes. She is responsible for providing leadership and administration of all activities of MSSSC. She has implemented several educational pilot projects and conferences for a mixed audience of medical healthcare providers and serves on an expert panel for the Office on Women's Health. Current Projects include unique customized core preceptorship programs for medical teams with supplemental online curriculum, an innovative three-year program for family medicine residents, hospitals, outpatient clinics, home care, and nursing home and skilled facility training for medical staff.

Chris Garson

Chris is an Information Technology executive retired from Progressive Insurance. While there, Chris led a large organization responsible for developing new software applications. He is an accomplished leader, strategist and public speaker who has served on national advisory boards serving technology and the financial service industry. Chris has experience in personal and organizational development, from his work experiences and his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University, where he earned a double degree in psychology and sociology. He is a certified Meyers-Briggs instructor and has logged over 200 classroom hours teaching MBTI and other content. Since retiring, Chris has become a novelist. Chris's strategic planning, organizational and governance skills are a welcome addition to the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland board.

Dennis R. Sutcliffe
Board Treasurer

Dennis retired from Progressive Insurance in 2006 after 28 years working in IT and Finance executive positions. He currently serves as Board President of PEF Federal Credit Union and is a member of St. Andrew's Abbey Financial Advisory Board. He is past-president of the Benedictine High School Board of Governors, past-president of the Benedictine Alumni Association and past-president of the Board of Trustees of the Tom Evert Dance Company. Dennis has a BBA and an MBA degree from Cleveland State University and is a Certified Management Accountant. He is also a certified mentor for EQmentor. Since 2009 Dennis has been doing volunteer work for the Western Reserve Historical Society's Lifelong Learning Initiative, where he authors and presents Reminiscence Learning programs for area senior centers.

Lawrence M. Bell, Esq.

As partner with the corporate and securities practice group in the Benesch business law firm, Larry focuses on mergers and acquisitions, public and private debt and equity financing, and contract law. Adjunct professor of contracts law at Case and Cleveland-Marshall with extensive expertise with issues of legal ethics, Larry is an officer or active trustee on the boards of several foundations, nonprofit, and community organizations in addition to his service on the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland board of directors. He brings a sense of humor, can-do attitude, and legal and business acumen to this position.

Leslie Yerkes

Leslie's measure of her success as a business leader and consultant is that she applies to herself first all the consulting principles in which she engages her clients. In her work as an organizational development / change management consultant, her goal is not to be positioned as an expert but rather as a trusted advisor. She founded Catalyst Consulting Group, Inc. in 1987. Her philosophy is simple: People are basically good, well intentioned, courageous, and able to learn. Her job is to provide a framework in which people can draw on their own inner resources to find creative solutions. Her consulting work has supported organizational success in diverse industries and non-profit fields with its focus on organizational change, strategic planning, and, above all, healthy sustainable organizational performance. Her expertise has a simple and profound focal point: that a person's work life best serves organizational success when it also sustains the highest purposes of the person. Leslie holds an adjunct faculty position at Weatherhead's Dively Center for Executive Education at Case Western Reserve University.

C. Wesley Jackson, Jr., PhD, ABPP

is a clinical psychologist in private practice and specializes in working with couples and individual adults. He has a special interest in measuring the positive behavioral changes resulting from couples therapy, and has developed a method for assessing these changes. He offers retirement issue workshops for those in pre-retirement, retirement, and of an age to retire but still working. Wes served as the Chair of GIC's Couple and Family and Small Systems Training Program for 25 years, and served as a member of GIC's Board of Governors, also for 25 years. He was a Professor of Psychology in the School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University for 10 years. He is Faculty Emeritus at GIC. Wes is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology from the American Board of Clinical Psychology (ABPP), is a Certified Health Service Provider, Council for the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, and is a Fellow in the Academy of Clinical Psychology.