Meet the Reed Group Team

Reed Group offers the industry’s best experts on absence management, leave laws, disability case management, return-to-work guidelines and other topics. If you would like to speak with any of the experts on our team, contact us.

	David Roberts, Chief Executive Officer, Reed Group David Roberts is Reed Group’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to this role, he served as Reed Group’s Chief Operating Officer and President of Reed Group’s LeavePro™ software business. David is committed to driving innovation in Reed Group’s absence management offerings and excellence in its customer service. He brings 20 years of enterprise business and software experience in large private and public sector organizations. Prior to Reed Group, David was a top advisor to Mayor John Hickenlooper (now Governor of Colorado) as the Chief Services Officer for Denver and was a senior Partner with Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), where he ran consulting practices and Fortune 500 client engagements for 17 years. He has a BA from Dartmouth College.
	Kevin Curry, Senior Vice President, National Practice Leader Kevin Curry brings more than 15 years of experience in Integrated Absence management and consulting to Reed Group. As Practice Leader, he is responsible for setting and facilitating Reed Group’s absence and disability business, with focus on technology, content and services. Before joining Reed Group, he was a well-known and highly respected senior absence management consultant in Mercer’s Total Health Management practice, where he helped numerous employers achieve cost reduction and productivity improvements in FMLA, disability and broader employee absence management activities. Kevin is a frequent speaker at industry conferences in the areas of Integrated Absence and Health & Productivity. Prior to his work on behalf of employers at Mercer, he held various leadership positions at CORE Inc.
	Kara Conley, RN, MS, LNCC, Senior Vice President, Service Operations Kara Conley is responsible for Reed Group’s absence management services, leading a team of experts to help our customers through their leaves of absence and disability. Kara leads Reed Group’s clinical expertise, processes, systems and personnel to deliver differentiated services in the marketplace and serves clients with demonstrable return-to-work outcomes. She is an expert in clinical case management, with more than 17 years’ experience in the health care industry and has lectured at the American Occupational Health Conference and the America Association of Occupational Health Nurses Symposium and Expo. Her previous experience includes occupational health at Ball Aerospace and various clinical nursing positions. She holds a BSN from Illinois Wesleyan University and a MS from Regis University, and holds the Legal Nurse Consultant Certification.
	Marti Cardi, JD, Chief Compliance Officer Marti Cardi is responsible for ensuring that Reed Group services are provided in compliance with state, federal, and local leave and employment laws. Her team tracks legislative proceedings, trends, and case law on an on-going basis. Marti is the chief author, editor, and content expert for Reed Group’s Leave of Absence Advisor®, an in-depth referential guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act and state leave laws. Marti’s expertise in employment law and leave compliance includes more than 25 years as in-house employment counsel for national companies and in private practice with Denver law firms, where she provided clients with advice and counsel on employment compliance matters and represented clients in state and federal courts and agency proceedings. She is admitted to practice in Colorado, holds a BA from Colorado State University, a J.D. from the University Of Colorado School Of Law, and is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell.
	Karen Davis, Vice President, Client Services Karen Davis has responsibility for the Account Management functions at Reed Group, providing professional, outcomes-driven account oversight. She brings more than 20 years of senior account services and management experience to Reed Group and has built a wide range of business relationships with senior executives at Fortune 100 & 500 companies. Prior to her time at Reed Group, Karen was Director of Client Services for Mainstream Marketing and Director of Account Management for DoubleClick. She holds a BS in Marketing from Florida State University.
	Randy Herndon, Vice President, Service and Software Sales Randy Herndon leads Reed Group’s service and software sales efforts. He is an accomplished industry executive with broad experience in absence and disability management consulting, sales and client service for US organizations of all sizes. As the sales leader, Randy has responsibility for working with potential clients to provide pre-sales advisory support, collaborating with industry consultants and brokers to design Reed Group solutions for their customers, and managing a professional sales organization. Prior to Reed Group, Randy held senior positions with Cigna, Aon, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield. He holds a BS and an MBA from the University of Denver.
	Jason Cole, Vice President, Software Development Jason Cole leads Reed Group’s software development organization, including product development, product management and project management functions. He has over 15 years of technology management experience and has led software development organizations for companies in the e-commerce, entertainment, financial services, total benefits outsourcing, and insurance industries. He has been leading Agile development projects since the mid-1990s and has spoken to clients and industry groups on the benefits of Agile development in large and small enterprises. Jason holds a BS in Economics from Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.
	Heather Rollins, Vice President, Human Resources Heather Rollins is responsible for the strategic management of all areas of Human Resources including legal compliance, staffing, performance management and compensation design. Heather held several operations positions at Reed Group prior to being promoted to Director of Human Resources in 2008 and Vice President in 2010. Before joining Reed Group, she worked for a major defense contractor in a variety of roles, including training and human resources, and spent five years working in the advertising industry. Heather holds a BA from Northern Arizona University and a dual MA from Webster University.
	Christy Traupe, Director of Operations Christy Traupe has oversight of the Colorado service team, managing and providing senior counsel to supervisors, acting as an escalation resource for service matters and ensuring that Reed Group’s industry leading quality standards for all services are met. Prior to her role as Director of Operations, Christy held several additional operational roles. Before coming to Reed Group, Christy worked for Omni Financial. She holds a BS from Metropolitan State College of Denver.
	John Nelson, Director of Guidelines Sales John Nelson leads Reed Group’s business development efforts for our online Guidelines content including the return to work toolkit, MDGuidelines, ACOEM treatment guidelines, and our FMLA Leave Advisor website. John is also responsible for our international efforts for guidelines and distribution partnerships across Reed Group. John has over 10 years’ experience in the insurance and health care industry. He works closely with our current and prospective clients including insurance companies, employers, TPAs and governments to help operationalize our products while ensuring our client’s needs are met. John holds a BS from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
	Heather Cushman, Controller Heather Cushman provides leadership and coordination of Reed Group’s accounting, payroll and financial functions including a focus on company-wide controls and budget management functions. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in finance, accounting and treasury for public and private companies in industries including international software, foodservice and teleservice operations. Prior to joining Reed Group in 2009, Heather served as Corporate Controller at Auto-trol Technology for five years. Earlier, she held senior roles at PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP. Heather is a CPA and CGMA, and holds a BBA in Accounting from Iowa State University and an MBA from the University of Iowa.
	Lucy Shannon, Director of Editorial Research and Development Lucy Shannon drives the content research and development behind The Medical Disability Advisor, which is now part of Reed Group’s web-based, return-to-work toolkit, MDGuidelines. She is responsible for new product initiatives within the Guidelines business, including an integration of data and content on occupational health, clinical treatment guidelines, medical and statutory return-to-work considerations, and predictive and preventive recommendations. Before joining Reed Group in 2001, she worked with banking and engineering firms on issues of accounting and compliance. Lucy holds a BS from the University of Oregon.
	Erik Vedvik, Senior Director of Technical Operations Erik Vedvik leads Reed Group’s Technical Operations team. His primary roles are managing infrastructure, security, software configuration, source control, builds, and database administration. He is responsible for delivering highly available, secure, redundant infrastructure in support of Reed Group’s suite of products. Erik has been instrumental in defining and implementing the secure and robust platform on which LeavePro™ resides. He brings Reed Group 14 years of enterprise IT infrastructure, hosting, and network/systems/database engineering experience. Erik holds a BA from Colorado State University and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Applied Information Technology.
	Vanessa Diaz, Director of Data and Business Analytics Vanessa Diaz is responsible for ensuring that Reed Group’s clients receive professional, outcomes-driven data reporting and analysis. Throughout her career, Vanessa has provided clients with expert advisory support in a wide range of areas, including business intelligence, data warehousing, data mining and market research. Prior to joining Reed Group, she built knowledge management processes and platforms for Wall Street organizations and manufacturing companies. Vanessa holds a BS in Engineering with an emphasis in MIS and an MBA from The University of Oklahoma Price College of Business with an emphasis on finance from NYU Stern School of Business.
	Lisa Bechard, Director of Software Quality Assurance Lisa Bechard is responsible for the quality of Reed Group’s software offerings, leading a team whose focus is providing our customers with the best possible user experience. She brings more than 20 years of experience in the software industry, directing and managing teams is to provide customers with high quality software products. Prior to joining Reed Group, Lisa worked with several startup companies to build their software quality, technical and customer support organizations.
	Deb Villard, Director of Product Development Deb Villard has responsibility for the Customer Support organization at Reed Group, leading a team of support specialists focused on meeting customer expectations. She has nearly 30 years of experience leading customer service/support teams in a variety of industries including, retail, personal and professional growth, federal government, and technology organizations.