Michael Orban
Dr. H. Medical College of Wisconsin
Board Member, President
Orban co-founded The Warrior Partnership, a Medical College of Wisconsin program that offers veterans the chance to talk about their traumatic war experiences with medical students and offers students the chance to learn how to integrate the unique needs of this population into their care. He also co-founded the Incarcerated Veterans Project and serves on the community-academic advisory board for Milwaukee PROMPT (Prevention of Opioid Misuse through Peer Training project), a collaboration between MCW and local veterans that is developing innovative ways to address opioid deaths, misuse and disorder among veterans.
Vietnam Veteran Michael S. Orban has dedicated his life to helping fellow veterans transition from the experiences of war. This includes, over the past decade, working with the Medical College of Wisconsin on projects that directly impact the health care and opportunities available to veterans.
Orban, a 45-year sufferer of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), spent years in U.S. Peace Corps Africa, USAID Cameroon and LBI engineering East Africa. Mike completed a three month inpatient PTSD treatment program at the Tomah , Wisconsin VA. Through keynote presentations on PTSD and suicide Orban provides educational resolutions and insights. . Having lost a brother and friend to suicide Mike considers the veteran and family as the primary health care unit and focuses much of his attention on here. He was presented with the Red Cross Real Heroes Award in 2013. Mike received his Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the Medical College of Wisconsin in part for his work concerning Veterans health
Diane Montgomery
Board Member and Vice President
Diane is experienced in working with the public and assessing their needs. Trained in counseling and experienced in sales and marketing, she is dedicated to helping and supporting veterans who suffer with PTSD.
MS Counseling College Personal UW PLATTEVILLE
Daughter of a WWII Veteran
Married to a Vietnam Veteran
Christina Goshaw Hinkle
Granddaughter of two WWII Veterans
Board Member and Secretary
Christina Goshaw Hinkle focuses her practice in the areas of estate and tax planning, estate administration and probate law, wills and trusts, charitable planning and business entity formation. She is a graduate of Duke University (1990 B.S. Mathematics) and the University of North Carolina School of Law (1993 J.D. with high honors), where she served as an Articles Editor of the North Carolina Law Review and was a member of the Order of the Coif. Following law school, Ms. Hinkle clerked for the Honorable J. Dickson Phillips, Jr., on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She currently practices law at McPherson, Rocamora, Nicholson, Wilson and Hinkle, PLLC, in Durham, North Carolina. The firm concentrates its practice in the areas of estate planning and administration, charitable giving and charitable entity formation, and tax and business law. Ms. Hinkle has been a board certified specialist in estate planning and probate law since 2008.
Ms. Hinkle is a member of the American Bar Association (Probate and Real Property section), and the North Carolina Bar Association (Estate Planning and Fiduciary Law and Business Law sections), as well as a current board member and executive officer of Child Care Services Association, a current board member of the NC State Bar Board of Continuing Legal Education and of the Durham/Orange Estate Planning Council.
David Carlson
David joined the Wisconsin Army National Guard and served two tours of duty in Iraq was deployed to Iraq for a year in 2004 earning the rank of Sergeant/E5. David is completing his undergraduate degree and hopes to attend law school with a goal to help veterans in trouble with the criminal justice system.
David is an experienced and knowledgeable speaker focusing on education concerning the criminal justice system, PTSD and the Veterans Court System.
Alfred Goshaw
Son of a WWII Veteran
Board Member Treasurer
Alfred Goshaw is a West Bend Wisconsin Native , a graduate of West Bend High School and the university of Wisconsin Madison. Alfred is a James B. Duke Professor of physics at Duke University where he leads a research group that studies the elementary structure of matter. His research activities have contributed to the development of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, including the discovery of the top quark and Higgs boson. His experiments are currently carried out using the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Geneva Switzerland. He has over 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. In addition to his physics research he is active in promoting discussions about the intersection between science and religion.
Advisors
Dr. Michael McBride
Dr. Michael McBride Lt. Colonel U.S. Army, Associate Professor of Psychiatry Medical College of Wisconsin, Psychiatry Staff VA Hospital Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Doctor McBride has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan
Dr. Greg Burek
Dr. Gregory Burek is a Psychiatrist with Aurora Behavioral Health, an Assistant Professor at Medical College of Wisconsin, and a former U.S. Marine. Prior to his medical training, Dr.
Burek was an infantry sergeant with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, and he served in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is currently developing a veteran-specific Trauma Recovery and Re-training program with Aurora Health Care.
Jon Christensen
Jon is a Vietnam Veteran who served in-country in 1967-68. Jon remarks that boots-on-the-ground-in Vietnam created the opportunity to serve combat Veterans from Vietnam through the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as a trauma counselor. His own experience with anger, depression, alcohol and drug use and other symptoms of Post Vietnam Syndrome (now known as PTSD) has motivated him to engage in the fight to increase awareness that the war doesn’t stop when the Veteran comes home.
Jon has been focused on helping Veterans receive treatment in the Alcohol/Drug field, as a leader in Employee Assistance Programs, as Director of Operations and Clinical Director with the Center for Veteran Issues homeless program in Milwaukee, and as a counselor with the VA Vet Center. Through the years he has also maintained a private practice and initiated a Vietnam Veteran Chapter in Racine, WI. Most recently, Jon is the co-facilitator for Healing Warrior Hearts intensive weekend retreat for combat Veterans, those surviving Military Sexual Trauma and LBGT Veterans. He is an Elder with the Medical College Warrior Partnership and serves on community committees that focus on his interests.
Jon is married and lives in Franklin, WI. He is a graduate of UWM and holds a Masters Degree in Education and a Masters Degree in Educational Psychology. He is a licensed Professional Counselor, a certified alcohol/drug counselor, certified Employee Assistance Professional, a Nationally Certified Counselor and a Nationally Certified Mental Health Counselor.
Vera Roddy
Vera Roddy is a two tour Persian Gulf war veteran who is passionate about women veterans issues, MST and readjustment education.
Alan Polachowski
I was born and raised on the south side of Milwaukee and attended Don Bosco High School graduating in 1963. In the fall of 63 I attended UW Eau Claire and graduated in Jan 1968 with a major in Economics and a minor in Political Science. Upon graduated I was drafted into the US Army, and attended infantry basic and advanced training then on to OFFICER’S CANDIDATE SCHOOL at the Infantry School at Fort Banning, GA. My duty assignment includes Fort Jackson as a training officer and Fort Banning as a trainee in the Heavy Motor Platoon leader school. Upon graduation I was assign to the Republic of Vietnam where I severed as a rifle platoon leader; commanding general’s briefing officer and an operations officer at the G5 Psyop. I returned to the USAR and left after serving 8 additional years leaving at the rank of Major.
My professional career started with Xerox Corp as an Account Executive primarily responsible for selling copiers to a vertical market called GEM (Government, Educational and Medical). After 6 yrs with Xerox, I was hired by a competitor called Creative Business Systems of Brookfield. It was there that I went from Major Account sales to sales management. In 1983, I moved on to an incentive company called Business Incentives of Minneapolis. At BI, I was an account executive with a territory in Wisconsin. In 1986, I decided to do something I always wanted to do – start my own company. Starting in my basement, Diversified Services Management grew to a 2 million dollar IT service provider. On December 29, 2011, I sold Diversified Services Management to Alexssa of West Bend.
As for my personal life, I married my college sweetheart Lynda Rasmussen. Lynda my wife of 52 years is a retire Speech Clinician who worked in the West Bend School District for 26 years. We were blessed with a beautiful daughter, Stacy. Stacy is married and has 2 children (Sydney 17, Luke 14) and lives in Chicago. Stacy is a major account executive with Heartland Computers of Chicago. Her husband Lee is an account executive with Honeywell.
I have enjoyed serving on several board of directors in the past. The organizations were Kettle Moraine YMCA for 18 years, the Moraine Park Technical College Foundation for 16 years.