President And Chief Executive Officer

Jeffrey E. Sterling, MD, MPH, FACEP

Dr. Jeffrey Sterling is a leader in community-based health care, organizational operations and efficiency. He is President and CEO of Sterling Initiatives (SI), an international healthcare consulting and implementation firm that provides entities with clinical, operational and financial best practices. SI has assisted health systems, health plans, state governments and medical practices in three-dozen states and five continents. Services include international call centers, emergency medicine contract management and telemedicine. Dr. Sterling is owner of SI Medical Supply, an international medical equipment export company, with offices in three states and South Africa. Dr. Sterling is President of 72 Hours Life, a personal and professional lifestyle management initiative that promotes and teaches efficiency as a means of improving quality of life and business productivity. Dr. Sterling is author of the popular daily healthcare blog, ‘Straight, No Chaser,’ and the books Behind the Curtain – A Peek at Life from within the ER, There Are 72 Hours in a Day – Using Efficiency to Better Enjoy Every Part of Your Life and Voices and Visions, the Evolution of the Black Experience at Northwestern University.

Additionally,

• Dr. Sterling served as President of the Northwestern University Black Alumni Association between 2014-2018, representing over 4800 alumni nationally organized in 29 local chapters. As such he was the cofounder of the first Archive of the Black Experience at Northwestern University, Executive Producer of the documentary The Takeover – The Revolution of the Black Experience at Northwestern University, creator of the NUBAA Achievement Scholarship which in just two years raised over $150,000 in gifts and pledges for Black students, and co-author of the first book on Northwestern’s Black history, titled Voices and Visions: The Evolution of the Black Experience at Northwestern University.

• Dr. Sterling founded the Minority Association of Pre-health Students, a national organization of premedical and other health career aspirants with chapters in over 300 colleges nationally.

• Dr. Sterling has served as CEO, Senior VP, Corporate Medical Officer, National Physician Practice Director, and Regional Medical Director for various health care contract management groups, and as Medical Director for 17 Emergency Medical System units and Home Health Companies.

• Dr. Sterling has served as Chairman and/or Medical Director of the Departments of Emergency Medicine at Level I Trauma Emergency Departments in Metropolitan DC (Prince George’s Hospital Center), Fort Worth (JPS Health Network) and Milwaukee (St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center).

• Dr. Sterling founded DFW Urgent Care, a series of award-winning urgent care centers in Texas, New York and California providing quality equivalent, cost-effective care alternatives to hospital ERs.

• Dr. Sterling founded the JPS Health Network’s Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program in Texas and created the first SANE program in the state of Connecticut at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC). Sterling Initiatives prevented the closure of CCMC in 2005.

• Dr. Sterling founded US Asthma Care, a series of outcomes based, best-practice Disease Management treatment facilities in Texas and Illinois working with Health Plans to reduce hospitalization and improve clinical outcomes among asthmatics.

• Dr. Sterling founded and served as Medical Director of the Covenant Healthcare Asthma Clinics in Milwaukee, then the largest asthma education clinic in Wisconsin.

• Dr. Sterling has served on the Board of the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America, Texas Chapter and the American Lung Association, Central States Region.

• Dr. Sterling served as Chairman of the DFW Minority Business Council’s Health Industry Group, a consortium of over seventy healthcare business enterprises across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. He currently serves in the same capacity for the Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce’s Health Industry Group.

Dr. Sterling has degrees from Northwestern, The Harvard School of Public Health (Health Policy & Management), and the University of Illinois College Of Medicine. He completed his Emergency Medicine Residency at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital. He has received executive education from Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. He is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Sterling is a speaker in high demand on topics of Medicine, Health Care, Public Health, productivity and efficiency, having delivered over one thousand lectures nationally since 2000 and a TedX talk in 2017.

Chief Community Relations Officer

Carol Adams, PhD

Chief Financial Officer

Marlo Kemp, MBA

Chief Information and Technical Officer

Arnold R. Crater, MS, MBA, PMP, ITIL, DCIE, DCOM

Arnold Crater has served as Chief Information Officer for Illinois’ Regional Transportation Authority and Director of Worldwide Technical Support for Motorola. In this capacity, Mr. Crater provided IT operations and integration oversight and governance for the six-county region served by the RTA system of public transportation, including the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace Bus.

A technology leader and seasoned operations professional, Arnold has built an expansive 25-year career, increasing business value through the development and execution of innovative growth initiatives and technology-enabled roadmaps. Broadly experienced across a wide range of verticals, he has an enhanced ability to help organizations enhance operational efficiency, accelerate revenue growth, maximize profitability, and facilitate continuous improvement through alignment of business, technology, and customer operations. With both public and private sector experience, Arnold has a proven capability to manage high-value projects and align diverse teams to strategic objectives. He delivers large-scale contributions to organizations through the introduction of multifaceted strategies, business development plans, and the revolution of current practices and systems. Recognized as a creative problem solver, he has a proven track record of transforming complex business challenges into positive growth. Motivational in his approach, Arnold is an emotionally intelligent leader, bringing together disparate teams, processes, and systems to affect significant growth and turnarounds. Possessing excellent digital leadership capability and a portfolio of business success, he makes an extensive and diverse background, network, and expertise and can communicate stakeholder requirements across all levels of seniority.

Arnold has an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, an MSME & BSME from the University of Illinois, Chicago. I also have PMP, ITIL, DCIE, DCOM certifications.  Arnold is also active in the following organizations:

• BOARD MEMBER/ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER • i.c.stars

• ELECTED BOARD MEMBER • Board of Education for Flossmoor School District 161

• ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER • Government Technology Forum

• MEMBER • Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)

• FORMER SECRETARY • North American Transit CIO Consortium

• BOARD PRESIDENT • Ballantrae of Flossmoor Community Home Owners Association

• MEMBER • Building Industry Consulting Services  International (BICSI)

• CHAIR • Southland Citizens Action Committee

• MEMBER • Program Management Institute

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Niva Lubin-Johnson

Niva Lubin-Johnson, M.D., FACP, an advocate of quality health care for all, especially the underserved and underrepresented, was installed as the 119th President of the National Medical Association (NMA) last year. Dr. Lubin-Johnson has been an active member of the NMA for over 30 years.

Since the founding of the National Medical Association in 1895, Dr. Lubin-Johnson is only the third person, and the first female, to serve as President, Speaker, and Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Dr. Lubin-Johnson received her B.S. Degree in Pharmacy from Creighton University and her medical degree from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, where she was distinguished as a member of the last class to finish within a three-year time frame. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Chicago, and has been in private practice for 28 years in the South Side neighborhood where she grew up and currently resides. She is currently a senior attending physician at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, associate attending at Advocate Trinity Hospital, and a clinical instructor at the University of Illinois.

Dr. Lubin-Johnson is a member of American Medical Association (AMA) and a fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2010, she was elected to serve on the AMA Minority Affairs Section Governing Council as an at-large member and was re-elected in April 2013. In June 2013, she was elected vice chair and served as chair from June 2014-16. As Chair, she was an Alternate Delegate to the AMA House of Delegates and a member of the AMA/NMA Commission to End Health Care Disparities and its’ Diabetes/Hypertension Committee. In 2009, she was appointed to serve on the Nominating Committee for the Cook County Health System Board, and in 2012 was elected to serve as Secretary and Vice-Chair.

Dr. Lubin-Johnson is the recipient of numerous awards including the Illinois Committee of Concerned Blacks in Higher Education Trustee Award; Midwest Community Council—Nancy B. Jefferson Community Service Award; Dollars and Sense Magazine’s Best and Brightest Women in Medicine; the Kizzy Award—Black Women’s Hall of Fame Foundation; the Student National Medical Association Award for Leadership and Service; and the Top Ladies of Distinction Orchid Award for Outstanding Women in Medicine. Dr. Lubin-Johnson is a proud member of Trinity United Church of Christ, and a life member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.