About RRC
Recent News

OUR TEAM

Sue Lacy, Mayra Porrata, Katie Fry
(Not pictured: Charles Thomas)

 

Sue Lacy, Managing Partner
slacy@roundriverconsulting.com

Sue has worked with dozens of non-profit organizations to plan and implement strategic planning processes, she has trained hundreds of leaders and staff to apply inclusion principles and behaviors to advance culture change initiatives, and she continues a strong track record of engaging citizens in collaborative action to address critical community issues.

Strategic planning projects she has led include: Akron-Summit County Public Library; Anthem Foundation of Ohio; Canton Community Clinic (FQHC); Community Support Services; Stark Prescription Network; Girl Scouts of the Western Reserve; the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton (2 cycles); United Way of Greater Stark County, the Center for Dental Wellness Scioto County and Western Stark Medical Clinic. Sue also led RRC’s work with the ADM Board in Summit County to identify strategic issues in preparation for the last levy campaign.

Sue led Round River Consulting’s work at the Summit County Board of MR/DD for five years to develop a comprehensive diversity/inclusion initiative geared toward engaging the full potential of the staff as a key strategy to increase organizational performance. The initiative is now fully integrated into the agency’s quality improvement program. RRC is currently working with Community Support Services to launch a similar initiative.

Over the past three years, Sue has served as project manager with a national organization, America Speaks, to engage Katrina evacuees and citizens who have been impacted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike throughout the southern portion of Louisiana in setting priorities to address their highest needs. The project has successfully engaged numerous stakeholders including the governor’s director for recovery. Sue is also leading a community-wide effort in New Orleans to launch a dialogue on race leading to collective action to address disparities in poor minority communities. She served as site manager in San Diego for California Speaks, a statewide conversation on health care and as co-floor manager for Equal Voices for America’s Families in Los Angeles, a meeting of 6,500 people that was connected via satellite to other meetings in Chicago and Birmingham. . Sue was also the lead consultant working with community leaders to launch “This City Reads!” in Summit County.

She has served as director of a local neighborhood development corporation to support economic development and community involvement, aide for a city councilperson in Cleveland, director of a city-wide community initiative to improve race relations, and as founding director of a faith-based community organization that led a campaign to transform the governance structure of Cleveland Public Schools. Sue also served as national training director for the Gamaliel Foundation, a national network of community-based organizations based in Chicago.

 

 

Katie Fry, Partner, M.Ed.
kfry@roundriverconsulting.com

Katie’s work as an educator, trainer, researcher and curriculum development specialist led her to work with Sue Lacy to create a consulting firm in 2002. Her expertise lies in creating training programs for leadership development and organizational culture change.

As a professional educator Katie taught in public schools, supervised student teachers, wrote curriculum for Kent State University and taught in Developmental Education and Upward Bound programs. Through her work as Training Coordinator for Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland, Katie developed curriculum for Community Educators and a six-month training program for the medical staff. As Education Director for Mustard Seed Market, she created a cooking school and community wellness education program. Her educational research supported the development of an award-winning community collaborative called This City Reads!

Katie is an associate of America Speaks, a national organization. She was a member of the national coordinating team for Advancing the Futures of Adults with Autism, a 16-city National Town Hall designed to create a policy agenda for addressing the needs of adults with autism. She served as site manager in Humboldt County for California Speaks, a statewide conversation on health care reform that engaged the governor and state legislators. Katie also served as co-site manager in Houston for an America Speaks project that engaged hundreds of displaced New Orleanians in two multi-site meetings to shape the plans to rebuild the city. She also served as co-floor manager for a meeting of 6,500 citizens in Los Angeles that engaged working families speaking 11 different languages in shaping an agenda for action in conjunction with thousands of others who were connected by satellite in Birmingham and Chicago.

Katie leads RRC’s work with clients to design employee recognition programs and focus group facilitation and she has conducted numerous training programs for businesses, organizations and learning institutions designed to develop leadership and maximize organizational potential.

 

Mayra Porrata, M.Ed.
mporrata@roundriverconsulting.com

Mayra joined Round River Consulting in 2005. Her multi-cultural background and multi-disciplinary training bring a unique and valuable perspective to Round River’s work. Mayra's professional background includes the conception, planning, implementation and evaluation of successful projects in technology integration, curriculum development, employee training and development, community relations, communications, marketing, and community health.

She led Round River Consulting’s work with Summa Health Systems to conduct 8 focus groups that led to recommendations to better meet the needs of a diverse patient base. Mayra also took the lead on the development of a marketing plan for Canton Community Clinic, a Federally Qualified Health Clinic in Stark County. As a result, Round River Consulting has been asked to offer a marketing workshop at this year’s statewide conference for FQHC’s.

Mayra’s current projects include: teaching at Kent State University, publishing of a children’s health education book series, improving consumer health literacy and community health, and promoting the use of technology for consumer health education and health behavior. Mayra holds a Bachelor of Arts in business management and a Master of Education in health education and promotion.

 

Charles Thomas
cthomas@roundriverconsulting.com

Charles (Skip) Thomas has been employed with the Center for Health Care Research and Policy as a Research Biostatistician for 17 very productive years. During that time he has developed expertise in statistical procedures such as Propensity and Bootstrap methods. In addition, he has presented these subjects in seminars and workshops at various professional conferences (see chrp.org , seminar archives). During the last 5 years Mr. Thomas has learned how to apply Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques to study the prevalence and incidence of disease in certain geographical areas as well as apply them in less traditional ways such as calculating the distances between homeless shelters and the nearest emergency rooms. He is a user of several programming languages and is a SAS (Statistical Analysis System) certified professional programmer. Mr. Thomas has been published in various well-respected journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Neurology, and the Journal of Mixed Methods Research.