Patrick Hesselmann , Chair

Patrick Hesselmann spent a successful career as a manufacturing engineer in the computer and avionics industries in Phoenix, Arizona, where, apart from working with the development and implementation of electronics assembly processes, he became best known for helping people work together. During the last fifteen years of his career, he studied homeopathy as an avocation, focusing on Hahnemann’s Organon, developing a good feel for its depth, wisdom and importance in the understanding and practice of homeopathy. He has lectured at the Desert Institute School of Classical Homeopathy on philosophy and history for all classes except the one in which he was a student. After graduating from the Desert Institute School in 2006, he has started a part-time practice of homeopathy at the American Medical College of Homeopathy. He served on the board of the Phoenix Homeopathy Study Group for many years, as President, Treasurer or Secretary. Other significant interests include listening to classical music and learning T’ai Chi.

Patrick emigrated from South Africa to the United States, via England, where he met and married Lesley. They have two grown children, Andrew and Flower.

Return to Top

Sonny Cave, Vice-Chair

Sonny Cave’s professional career spans 20 years of broad legal and business experience, including working for more than 10 years within the semiconductor industry.  Mr. Cave currently serves as the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer of ON Semiconductor Corporation headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. ON Semiconductor (NASDAQ:ONNN) is a leading global supplier of advanced semiconductors for sophisticated electronics application within the portable, wireless, computing, consumer, networking, automotive, and industrial end-product markets.  It has major sales and operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.  Mr. Cave earned his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Colorado Law School in 1985. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Botany from Arizona State University (1982) and a Bachelor of Science degree in Botany, cum laude, from Duke University (1979).

Return to Top

Lesley Hesselmann, DHM - Secretary

Lesley Hesselmann spent the first half of her career as a secretary at Honeywell ending with five years as Executive Secretary to the CEO.  She then took a series of supervisory assignments within the organization.  For the last six years, she has worked as a technical writer, writing technical user manuals for our proprietary computer systems.  She became interested in homeopathy in 1991 when the National Center for Homeopathy started an affiliated Study Group, the Phoenix Homeopathy Study Group (PHSG). She joined the PHSG board as secretary, and served in that position for many years.  She became the National Center for Homeopathy (NCH) Regional Coordinator for the southwest region in about 1995 and held that position until this year. She has served on the  advisory boards of both the Desert Institute and the Desert Institute School of Classical Homeopathy.  She is the past president of the Desert Institute Development Group.

Return to Top

Harry F. Swope, MBA, ND, DHANP, CCH - Treasurer

Dr. Swope graduated from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon in 1989. In 2005, he was one of the initial group to receive a Naturopathic Doctor's license in California. Prior to that, he held an Arizona license as a naturopathic physician. For over fifteen years he participated in efforts to license NDs in California, serving for several years during the final phase as a board member and Treasurer of the California Naturopathic Doctors Association. With the invaluable support of Durr Elmore, DC, ND, DHANP and others, he founded the Council for Homeopathic Certification in 1991. He has remained on that board to support the organizations goal of creating a unified and respected homeopathic profession based on shared standards of training, competency, and ethical behavior. In 2005 he was recognized by the National Center for Homeopathy with the Henry Williams Professional Service Award, in large part for the contribution that the Council for Homeopathic Certification has made. He is a past board member and Vice President of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. He was one of the founders of the Institute for Natural Medicine. He is a past board member and Vice President of the National Center for Homeopathy. He has recently accepted an invitation to be a member of the advisory board and the Treasurer for the American Medical College of Homeopathy which is being established in Arizona. Prior to entering the health-care field, Dr. Swope had a sixteen-year career in corporate finance and computer systems. At the height of that career he was Director of Corporate Systems in two "Fortune 500" companies. His career in New York City included work for two major pharmaceutical companies and a partnership in a company providing specialized financial consulting to most of the major hospitals in the US. He holds an MBA from the Darden School of the University of Virginia and a BA, with distinction, in economics from the University of Virginia. As opportunities arose, he has sought to apply his business and organizational skills to strengthening the infrastructure of the homeopathic and naturopathic professions. He continues to envision a world where safe and cost-effective forms of natural medicine become the first choice of the public and healthcare providers alike.

Return to Top

Brian Critchfield

Brian is an international speaker, author, and consultant on the topics of word of mouth marketing, marketing strategy, and online marketing. His work with hundreds of companies has generated not only amazing results, but helped him to hone a formula for building word of mouth marketing from the inside out. He has delivered seminars from Boise to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and his articles have appeared in publications as far reaching as Forbes India. He is also currently writing a book detailing his formula called Marketing from the Navel: How to become a Company Worth Talking About and Arm Customers To Spread The Word. 

Brian has more than 17 years of marketing, sales, and business development experience. He has been instrumental in launching and building many organizations including launching and building brands, growing sales forces and channels, launching new divisions, developing manufacturing partnerships, re-branding and re-positioning companies, and helping Fortune 500 firms launch products and develop go-to-market strategies. For the last 6 years, Brian has been running word-of mouth marketing agencies, delivering seminars, and working with clients all over the world.

Recently, Brian was awarded the Accomplished Under 40 award which recognizes the top 40 business leaders under the age of 40. He serves the community on several boards of directors, civic groups, and youth groups. He holds a BBA degree in Marketing from Boise State University and a Global MBA through the prestigious Thunderbird School of Global Management, where he is also a guest blogger for the Thunderbird Knowledge Network. Brian is married with four daughters. 

Beth Patton, RN

Beth Patton is currently the associate dean/director in the College of Health and Human Services at the University of Phoenix. Patton has been with the University for over 20 years and has served in a variety of administrative positions. She is also faculty for the University teaching nursing and health care related courses. Prior to coming to the University of Phoenix she taught in a variety of educational institutions. In addition, she has several years experience providing and developing continuing education programs for hospital based employees. Patton has a diploma in nursing from the Medical College of Pennsylvania and BS Ed from Temple University in Philadelphia. In addition, she has a masters degree in Organizational Management as well as a Master of Nursing degree from the University of Phoenix. She has also completed doctoral coursework in adult education from Nova Southeastern University.

Return to Top

Joie Rowles PhD, HMA, CCH

Dr. Joie Rowles earned a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School Dallas, Texas and has over 20 years experience in biomedical research. She has been involved with homeopathy since 1994 and graduated from the Desert Institute School of Classical Homeopathy in 2002. She is the director of homeopathic research for AMCH and serves on the AMCH Board of Directors. In addition to her teaching at DISCH, she is on faculty at Midwestern University in Glendale, AZ.

Return to Top

Paul Sugar

Paul Sugar, a health care management professional, has founded and operated a number of highly successful service related businesses in the medical and dental fields. Beyond combining management, financial, and marketing skills to maximize the growth of these organizations, Paul has applied the principles of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Peak Performance. After receiving his degree from Syracuse University in 1969, Paul began his pioneering exploration in the fields of stress reduction and performance enhancement. In his commitment to continually improve his skills, Paul has taught his programs in the health care, academic, corporate and private sectors for more than 35 years. Pauls MBSR class offers physician CME, nursing CEU and learning codes for dietitians. Continuing education credits are accepted by a number of other professional organizations.

 Return to Top

Alyssa Wostrel MBA, DIHom

Alyssa Wostrel is the Founder and President of 1M Integrative Solutions, a consulting company focused on the development of strategic sales and marketing initiatives for homeopathic/herbal/natural products companies, particularly regarding medical education and the practitioner channel.  Passionate about educating clients, customers and employees about natural products to make a qualitative difference in their lives, the 1M Solutions client list has included many of the market leaders in the homeopathic sector as well as in the natural products arena. An emerging specialty of 1M Solutions is providing project management services for the US product launches of European companies, particularly in the confusing nexus of regulatory requirements and sales and marketing challenges. Previous to Ms. Wostrels consulting career, she enjoyed 8 years of corporate tenure with Heel Inc, a German homeopathic manufacturing market leader, including the team leadership positions of National Sales Manager and Director of Sales and Marketing.  One of the key projects Ms. Wostrel oversaw was the collaborative effort to create a new scope of educational programs directed toward medical professionals (over 300 events annually) while aligning the overall sales effort to provide for continuous sales expansion over a strategic 5 year growth plan.  Her passion for medical education extends to international medical mission fieldwork Alyssa is a Global Impact Fellow with Unite for Sight for her participation in fieldwork in Chennai, India in 2008.  Other community service pursuits include peer mentoring with Next Step Leadership Mentoring. She is an active member of the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists.  Alyssa Wostrel lives in Southern California with her husband and children (ages 15 and 19), their miniature Doxie, Mr. Chips, and two cats. 

Dominic Grillas

Dominick Grillas is an international business and technology leader with a passion for enterprise effectiveness and transformation. His  experience spans over 25 years of IT and Operations management, business and consulting with a focus on strategy execution, enterprise architecture and performance, program and portfolio management, transformation and outsourcing, leading numerous global and transformational initiatives in the US, Europe, APAC and LATAM.

Dominick has been working for world leading consulting firms such as Cap Gemini, Keane, and Wipro, where he both managed Fortune 500 accounts and helped grow business in Europe and the Americas. In his early career as a System Engineer Dominick focused on optimizing large scale architectures and mainframe computers internal code, managed multi-centre IT organizations and reorganized data centres across Europe. Dominick then helped Cap Gemini with its overall transformation and various merger & acquisitions, leading the training of entire management and executive teams as well as the management of business performance for several countries and subsidiaries.

Dominick developed or contributed to multiple methodologies and publications on Market and Account Planning, Strategic Planning & Execution, Governance, PMO, Enterprise Portfolio and Benefits Realization. A graduate of the University of Bordeaux (France) and a certified architect, project and program manager, change manager and transformation coach, Dominick is currently Director, Strategic Programs and focuses on large and very large IT and Enterprise performance and transformation initiatives for US global clients such as GE Medical Systems, Prudential, ING, Nike, and Diversity.

Return to Top

Sandra Kamiak, M.D.

Sandra Kamiak, M.D., a graduate of the Hahnemann College of Homeopathy (Albany-Pt Richmond, Ca.) maintains a private practice, in Saratoga, Ca, practicing classical homeopathy.She has a body-mind-spirit focus in her work and enjoys seeing people grow in consciousness, especially at this profound time in the history of the planet.

Return to Top

Past Board Members

AMCH would like to thank the following past Board Members for their service and support in achieving its mission:

• Darlene Atteberry, MS Ed

• Jeff Baker ND, DHANP

• Iris Bell MD, MD(H), PhD

• Keith Dorson

• Gary Hunnel, MBA

• Sheri Zapp