Cara C. Bachenheimer

Cara C. Bachenheimer is Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Invacare where she is responsible for the company's federal lobbying activities with Congress, the Administration and the federal regulatory agencies. Ms. Bachenheimer has been closely involved with the home medical equipment industry for 20 years. Cara specializes in legislative and regulatory matters arising under Medicare and Medicaid and has over 10 years experience in national coalition and association management. Most recently, Cara has been actively involved in working with Congress as it passed the new Medicare law delaying implementation of the competitive bid program, exempting high end rehab from future bids, and repealing the requirement that beneficiaries assume ownership of their oxygen equipment.

Dexter Braff

Dexter is the President of The Braff Group, a leading middle market merger and acquisition firm that specializes in home medical equipment, infusion therapy, home health care, hospice, staffing, specialty pharmacy, and ehealthcare market sectors. With more than 17 years experience in the field, he is recognized as the industry expert in health care M&A.

Dexter has written feature articles that have appeared in many national health care publications. He has presented seminars on various issues regarding home care M&A and finance at major industry conferences including The Art of the Deal, Healthcare M&A & Corporate Development Conference, Medtrade, Home Care 100, and the National Association for Home Care. He is also a regular presenter at many state home care associations.

Dexter holds an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

Don Clayback

Don Clayback is Vice President of Government Relations for The MED Group, a national association of home medical and rehab equipment providers. He has responsibility for monitoring, analyzing, reporting, and influencing legislative and regulatory activities on behalf of MED and its members. Don was the lead on MED's efforts and programs relating to Medicare's National Competitive Bidding initiative.

Don has over 22 years of experience in the HME and Rehab industry. He is actively involved in industry issues and serves on the American Association for Homecare's Legislative Committee, Regulatory Committee, and Rehab Council. He also serves on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the National Coalition for Assistive and Rehab Technology (NCART). Don is a frequent speaker at national and regional meetings. Prior to joining MED in 2002, he served as an industry consultant for 7 years and previous to that held the position of Vice President at two HME companies. His pre-industry career was as a CPA with the accounting and consulting firm of Price Waterhouse.

Leslie DeFelice

Les founded DeFeliceCare, Inc. in March 1995 and is President and Chief Executive Officer. The company is a key regional provider of home oxygen therapy, sleep therapy, respiratory medications, home medical equipment, and diabetes testing supplies for customers in 30 counties in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Prior to this, Les was an assistive technology supplier with Liken Home Medical, a regional home healthcare company. His 32-year career includes experience in sales and marketing, management, commercial banking, and capital markets, with the past 16 years in the home healthcare industry.

Les served two consecutive terms as President of the West Virginia Medical Equipment Suppliers Association. He is a director of the American Association for Homecare and past chair of the Home Medical Equipment/Respiratory Therapy Advisory Council. Les is a director of The West Liberty State College Foundation, his alma mater, and member of the Investment Committee. He is a director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and past Chair of the Marketing Committee. He has served on the board of directors of ARC (formerly the Association of Retarded Citizens) of Ohio County, and was the first President of the Ohio Valley Chapter of the National Stroke Association.

In November 2005, Les was a recipient of The State Journal's 13th annual Who's Who in West Virginia Business award and believes his greatest business accomplishment has been the creation of 42 jobs in his home state of West Virginia.

John Gallagher

John Gallagher is Vice President of Government Relations for The VGM Group. In an effort to promote and defend the HME industry, Gallagher has been instrumental in the development of the VGM Political Action Committee (VGMPAC), and the Last Chance for Patient Choice 527 Group (www.lastchanceforpatients.org ). Both are focused on lobbying and advocating members of Congress on the concerns and issues of the independent provider. In addition to other Grassroots lobbying efforts, Gallagher also continues to assist Industry State Associations with the development of their own PACs.

Prior to joining VGM, John served as Vice President-North American Sales with Osbon Medical Systems. He remained in this position through two mergers/acquisitions with UroHealth Medical and Imagyn Medical Technologies.

In 1998, Gallagher teamed up with Julian Osbon to form a new medical equipment company, SOMA BLUE Medical. He served as Vice President-North American sales for SOMA BLUE until he moved to Rhodes Financial Services as Director of Sales and Marketing.

While at Rhodes Financial Services, Gallagher served as liaison / lobbyist between the company and various government agencies. He served on monthly IRS and SBSE (Small Business - Self Employed) forums that dealt with issues affecting the tax industry and tax software development.

John received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, in 1983, and a master's degree in management from the State University of New York - Binghamton in 1990. He received his Regular Army Commission from the University of Iowa in 1983, and served as a US Army Signal Corp. Officer from 1983 until 1989, when he resigned his commission with the rank of Captain.

Richard Glass

Richard Glass is President of Steven Richards & Associates, Inc. and has negotiated the sale of over 125 HME / Respiratory businesses since 1994. He has extensive experience in developing strategic growth plans and implementing systems and controls to increase operating profits. Previously, Mr. Glass served as a Senior Manager with Arthur Andersen for seven years, providing financial services to a wide variety of businesses. He has a comprehensive knowledge of business acquisitions and divestitures and their tax consequences. Mr. Glass holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and is also a Certified Public Accountant and member of AICPA and FICPA.

Seth Johnson

Seth Johnson is the Vice President of Government Affairs for Pride Mobility Products Corporation and is based in Washington, DC. He is also the current Vice-Chair of the AAHomecare Re/Hab and Assistive Technology Council. In his role with Pride he lobbies on Capitol Hill, the White House, and CMS on major policy issues impacting rehab providers. He is a member of CMS DME Program Advisory and Oversight Committee which is charged with providing guidance to CMS on issues related to implementation of Competitive Bidding. Prior to joining Pride, Seth was the Vice President of Government Affairs for the AAHomecare. Prior to that Seth spent five years on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide to two members of Congress.

Joseph S. Lewarski, BS, RRT, FAARC is currently the Vice President of the Respiratory Group for Invacare Corporation. Invacare (NYSE: IVC), headquartered in Elyria, Ohio, is the global leader in the manufacture and distribution of innovative home and long-term care medical products that promote recovery and active lifestyles. The company has 5,700 associates and markets its products in 80 countries around the world.

Lewarski has been actively working in healthcare for over 23 years. He is a registered respiratory therapist and a Fellow of the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC). Lewarski is the past recipient of the American Respiratory Care Foundation Award for Excellence in Home Respiratory Care (2001). He has served in numerous management and leadership roles in both the acute care and alternate health care settings, shifting to home care in 1991. He is a former Partner and President/CEO of a large, independent HME/RT and pharmacy operation based in Ohio, which was acquired by Omnicare, Inc. (NYSE-OCR). Following the acquisition, Lewarski served six years as the subsidiary president until leaving to pursue work in respiratory device research, manufacturing and homecare government affairs.

Lewarski is a respiratory and home care industry advocate and has served as a clinical and homecare expert for numerous consensus conferences, advisory boards and industry programs. He is a regular speaker at regional and national pulmonary medicine, respiratory therapy and homecare conferences.

Lewarski has published over 30 scientific and research papers, primarily in the areas of oxygen technology and home ventilation, as well as numerous articles, white papers and health care industry commentaries. He has co-developed a number of medical devices, including a nasal CPAP humidifier and oxygen-conserving device and has served as a consultant on respiratory product development and marketing to a number of medical device manufacturers.

Mike Mallaro is the Chief Financial Officer of VGM Group. His responsibilities include the leadership of all financial, tax, information technology and employee benefit matters for VGM as well as executive responsibility for five VGM operational divisions of VGM: VGM-Forbin, VGM-Technologies, VGM-Creative, Strategic Media and Strategic Imaging.

Previously, Mallaro was CFO for Gordmans, a retail chain, where he was part of a turnaround executive team. Mallaro spent the first twelve years of his career as a CPA with Deloitte & Touche. A graduate of the University of Iowa, he holds the CPA and CMA designations.

Rector is a founder and former chairman of the Small Enterprise Growth Fund, the venture capital fund of the State of Maine. He's also a founder and former executive director of the POP!TECH conference, an annual conference exploring the impact of technology on people and society. He sits on the board of Taction, a Maine-based customer contact center.

Wayne E. Stanfield

Wayne E. Stanfield is an experienced home medical equipment industry consultant, a veteran air traffic controller, and has been involved in the HME industry for more than 21 years. During this period he served as the director of operations of a large independent HME operation in Virginia and subsequently as a co-owner of two full service DME companies as well as two unit-dose pharmacies. He also manages a Virginia-based provider network with 63 locations in 11 states.
Mr. Stanfield is a former member the Region B DMERC Council and participated in the several NAMES Project Blueprint programs as well as the NAMES Consensus Conference on HME held in Washington in 1994. He served on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Association for Medical Equipment Services (NCAMES), the Virginia Association for Home Care (VAHC), and as Executive Director of the Virginia Association of Durable Medical Equipment Companies (VADMEC).

Mr. Stanfield is an Air Force veteran and the recipient of the Bronze Star Medal for service in Vietnam.