Leadership

Dr. Robert “Bob” Vero is the Regional Chief Executive Officer for Centerstone, a not-for-profit health system specializing in mental health and substance use disorder treatments. As Regional Chief Executive Officer, Vero is responsible for the leadership and operational oversight of Centerstone’s clinical service lines in Tennessee and Georgia, as well as strategic business development, fiscal performance and accountability, and the organization’s philanthropic fund development efforts.

Vero has worked in behavioral health care for more than four decades and helped Centerstone grow from a relatively small organization into one of the largest community-based behavioral health care providers in the country. His clinical experience includes both private and community-based practice with special focus on substance use prevention and treatment, marriage and family therapy, and critical incident stress management services. He has also served as a psychological consultant to the Nebraska State Highway Patrol and Metro Nashville Police Department.

Vero is an active volunteer board member for several not-for-profit organizations, including Cumberland University and the Tennessee Association of Mental Health Organizations (TAMHO) where he served three terms as president. He has also served as co-chair of the Nashville-Davidson County Behavioral Health and Wellness Advisory Council and as a member of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s Long Term Care Task Force (COVID-19). Honors received include three National Alliance on Mental Illness Professional of the Year awards, the Nashville Business Journal’s Health Care Hero Award, and TAMHO’s President’s Award.

Vero graduated from Creighton University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling. He graduated from Vanderbilt University’s George Peabody College with his doctorate degree in human development counseling.

Ben Middleton serves as Chief Operating Officer in Tennessee. In this role, he oversees all of Tennessee’s clinical operations, which include outpatient clinic services; co-occurring disorder treatment; adult, adolescent and child case management; continuous treatment team; intervention services and court services. He specializes in alcohol and drug abuse treatment and services for those with mental illnesses.

A graduate of Alabama A&M University in Normal, Ala., with an MS in clinical psychology, Middleton has been with Centerstone since 1990.

Karen Rhea serves as Chief Medical Officer in Tennessee. In this role, Dr. Rhea oversees Centerstone’s medical services and ensures that Centerstone’s psychiatric services are effectively integrated within programs.

Dr. Rhea has been at Centerstone since 2002 and has been interested in the use of psychotropic medications in community mental health settings, integration of related physical health parameters, research relationships with academic researchers, providing evidence-supported treatments that work, and in the leadership role of psychiatrists in community behavioral healthcare. She has also been a long-time facilitator of the Vanderbilt-Centerstone collaboration around teaching, research and clinical care.

Dr. Rhea received her MD with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her internship and residency in pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Beth Hail serves as Regional Vice President of the central region in Tennessee, which encompasses Davidson, Wilson, Williamson and Rutherford counties.

Previously director of the Centerstone school-based services as well as child and adolescent services, she is a 23-year veteran of the organization.

Hail holds a MA in social work administration from the University of Louisville and is a licensed clinical social worker.

Matt Hardy is Regional Vice President for Centerstone in the northern part of Tennessee, overseeing behavioral health outpatient clinics plus case management, peer support, psychosocial and school-based therapy services among others.

He joined Centerstone in 2000 as a therapist, specializing in the treatment of adolescents and adults with severe and persistent mental illness.

Additionally, Hardy is a critical incident responder, providing post-crisis aid to clients such as the National Football League and Nashville Fire Department. He also helped launch the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Centerstone, a facility that seeks to improve the quality of life for veterans and their families.

Hardy holds a PsyD in psychology from Wheaton College and is a licensed clinical psychologist.

Ken Stewart serves as Regional Vice President for the southern region in Tennessee, including Hamilton, Franklin, Coffee, Moore, Bedford, Lincoln, Maury, Lewis, Giles, Lawrence, Marshall, Perry, Hickman and Wayne counties. He joined Centerstone 28 years ago.

Stewart holds an MA in Psychology from East Tennessee State University and is licensed as a senior psychological examiner.

Sallie Allen is Vice President of Support Services in Tennessee. In this role, she provides leadership for the people who experience Centerstone first: our customer call center and our front office professionals. She also manages the construction, expansion, maintenance and effective management for each of the Centerstone facilities throughout Tennessee.

Allen brings over 20 years of experience and expertise in facility management and customer service to her position in Centerstone’s leadership team.

Brad Nunn serves as Vice President of Quality Improvement in Tennessee. This role involves planning for improvement in care and services. He provides feedback to management regarding whether care and services meet expectations of customers and he provides leadership and direction for the Quality Council. In addition, his department plays a significant role in the ongoing preparation for CARF accreditation. They coordinate and facilitate clinical audits and the response to such audits done by external agencies. QI also maintains primary responsibility for oversight of follow-up regarding adverse occurrences and is responsible for oversight of the coordination of clinical training in line with strategic initiatives in Tennessee.

Dr. Nunn obtained a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Auburn University in 1987 and has been licensed as a Clinical Psychologist in the state of Tennessee since 1988. He helped establish a research department at Centerstone and served as Chair of the Centerstone Institutional Review Board from 2002-2007. He has been with Centerstone since 1987.

Julie Spears serves as Regional Finance Officer in Tennessee, responsible for the general ledger and billing. Since joining Centerstone in 2009, she and her team have reduced bad debt from $3.6 million in FY09 to approximately $1 million in FY17, while net client service revenue for that same time period grew from $37 million to $59 million.

Spears is a 1993 graduate of Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kent., and has worked in mental health since 2001.

Becky Stoll serves as Vice President of Crisis and Disaster Management in Tennessee. In this role, Stoll oversees the continuum of Centerstone’s crisis services, including the 24-hour crisis call center, the mobile crisis response team and Centerstone’s crisis management strategies, which is a public- and private-sector crisis preparedness and response service.

Stoll also represents Centerstone on a national and international scale through her roles as board chair and faculty member for the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF). In addition, she serves as mental health faculty for the American Red Cross, clinical director for the Nashville Fire Department’s Critical Incident Stress Management team, chair of the State Disaster Mental Health Response Committee and consultant and trainer for the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), the Association of Flight Attendants and US Airways.

Stoll has been with Centerstone for 16 years and previously served as director of crisis services and crisis management strategies. She holds a BA from Tennessee State University and an MA in Social Work from the University of Tennessee.

Carol Cox oversees Centerstone’s continuum of care model for Therapeutic Foster Care and Adoption, while meeting the performance-based contracting standards set by the Department of Children’s Services. She also directs Early Childhood Services grant programs that serve children ages five and younger and their families, including the Regional Intervention Program, Fatherhood Engagement, Breastfeeding Support, Parent Coaching and others. Ms. Cox received her MA in Clinical Psychology from Middle Tennessee State University, is a licensed psychological examiner and has more than two decades of experience working with children and families in foster care.

Tonya L. Gilbert is the Human Resources Director in Tennessee. In this role, she oversees employee relations issues and litigation matters, develops and implements cultural initiatives, ensures staffing requirements are met, ensures all procedures regarding employment and employees — including compensation, hiring and termination, assigned job responsibilities and others — are administered lawfully, equitably and in a manner that motivates employees to reach their full potential as individual staff members.

Her more than 15 years of HR experience has included support services, administration and labor relations over the course of her career.

Gilbert is a proud alumna of Tennessee State University, where she received a BS in speech communication/broadcast journalism. She also holds an MBA and a PHR and SHRM-CP certifications. She resides in Nashville.

Sherry Randles is Director of Mobile Crisis Care services in Tennessee. In this role, she oversees the mobile crisis care services for Bedford, Cheatham, Coffee, Dickson, Franklin, Giles, Hickman, Houston, Humphreys, Lawrence, Lewis, Lincoln, Marshall, Maury, Montgomery, Moore, Perry, Robertson, Stewart, and Wayne counties.

Randles has worked for crisis services in some capacity for over 10 years. She began her career at Centerstone as a therapist in 1995.
She holds a MA in Counseling from Trevecca University and is a licensed professional counselor.

Kathy Rogers is Director of Quality Improvement in Tennessee.

After starting her career at Dede Wallace Center as an outpatient therapist, she worked for Miller Medical and Nashville Healthcare, providing outpatient services to Prudential/PruCare members, before moving into more administrative and UM roles with Columbia Healthcare Network. She began Quality Improvement work in 2000 with Magellan Behavioral Health and was hired at Centerstone in 2005.

She received her BA degree in psychology from Stonehill College in North Easton, Mass., and her MSSW from The University of Tennessee School of Social Work.

Rogers is a native New Yorker who has been in Nashville for nearly 40 years. She and her husband, Bob, have two children and one grandson.

Mandi Ryan is Vice President of Healthcare Integration in Tennessee. She is the Health Link administrator, which provides health home services by promoting whole-person care coordination, health promotion, and wellness coaching across all of the organization’s 19 outpatient clinics throughout Tennessee. She is leading the organization’s Behavioral Episodes of Care Initiative and Integrated Care primary care partnership in four of the outpatient clinics. She also serves as the project director for two Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration (PBHCI) grants, which provide health home services to adult clients in Nashville and Clarksville, resulting in improved mental and physical health outcomes.

Under her leadership, Centerstone became one of the first providers to receive accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) as a Behavioral Health Home for children and adults in May 2015 in four of the organization’s outpatient clinics and, in May 2016, received Health Home accreditation in all of the organization’s nineteen outpatient clinics throughout Tennessee.

Ryan has over 15 years of experience in nursing, behavioral health, primary care and integrated services. She received her BS in nursing in leadership and administration from Walden University and her BS in biology from Ouachita University. She enjoys spending time with her family and reading.

John Sanders is the Director of Housing Services. He has been with Centerstone since 1999.

Sanders attended MTSU and TSU, and received an MS degree in guidance and counseling. He is part of the Homeless No More steering board.

Phyllis Viltz is the Director of Special Projects. In this role, she oversees several Federal, State and local government grants. Among these are the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF), the U.S. Department of Labor Re-Entry Services for Young Adults, the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Criminal Justice Liaison, Targeted Transitional and Community Targeted Transitional grants.

She has been with Centerstone for more than 20 years and has been in her current position since 2014.

Viltz graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Tennessee State University, and holds a Master of Science degree in guidance and counseling. She is licensed by the State of Tennessee as a Senior Psychological Examiner. She is a member of NAMI-TN and the American Psychological Association.

Scott Valentine is Compliance & Privacy Officer in Tennessee. In this role, he is responsible for the administration, implementation and management of the Compliance and Privacy programs. Valentine is considered a subject expert on healthcare privacy and is a valued member of the compliance staff. He also serves as Title VI Coordinator for Tennessee.

A graduate of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center with a BS degree in Health Information Management, he joined Centerstone in 1998. He holds certification as a Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) from the American Health Information Management Association, and  certifications in Health Care Privacy (CHCP) and Health Care Compliance (CHC) from the Health Care Compliance Association.