Board of directors
Dr. Leon Kelly, president: Leon is a board-certified forensic pathologist and the coroner, chief medical examiner and deputy medical director of El Paso County. His statewide work as a medical expert has included service on the Child Fatality Prevention System State Review Team, and he co-founded the county’s Child Fatality Review Team to help lead local suicide prevention efforts. Leon also teaches at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
Taline (Ty) Meredith, vice president: Ty is the chief executive officer for Peak View Behavioral Health. She has over 18 years’ experience in hospital operations, business development, social services and mental health, and holds an MBA. Ty has previously served as vice chair on the board of directors at Pikes Peak Suicide Prevention Partnership and currently volunteers as a leader for the Boy Scouts of America. She believes strongly in providing needed quality mental health programs for Colorado residents and advocating for community access to care.
Rob Levis, treasurer: Rob is president of Levis Consulting, a Colorado Springs-based forensic accounting practice. He is a CPA and has a B.S. and Master of Accounting degrees from the University of Florida. Rob specializes in business appraisals and economic loss quantification in litigated disputes. He is a graduate of NAMI's Family-to-Family program.
Julie Papa, secretary: Julie is a mother of three and an attorney with Papa Law PLLC, where she concentrates her practice on estate planning, estate administration and business. She holds BSFS and JD degrees from Georgetown University and has served as parliamentarian of the board of the National Charity League Colorado Springs Chapter. Julie has also volunteered with Care and Share Food Bank, Junior Achievement and other local nonprofits.
Tamara Cannafax: Tamara is a marketing project manager at Pikes Peak Community College. Having lived with major depression and anxiety for over 20 years, Tamara began her recovery in 2016, when she attended NAMI’s Peer-to-Peer class and Connection Support Group. Eager to pay it forward and help others on the journey to mental health recovery, she became a dedicated volunteer and is a certified Connection facilitator and Peer-to-Peer leader and state trainer.
Andrew Cooper: Andrew, a Colorado Springs Fire Department lieutenant, is currently CSFD’s Community Officer in the Community and Public Health Division. He has been a paramedic for 20 years and a CSFD firefighter for the last 15 years. Andrew supervises the Community Response Teams (CRT), which offer mobile mental health response, and collaborates with community partners around youth suicide prevention, overdose prevention and lethal means access.
Damian McCabe: Damian is a retired Army officer and behavioral health clinician. After 24 years taking care of service members and their families, he joined the UCHealth system as the director of behavioral health-military affairs. He has been using and supporting the resources of NAMI since the early 1990s, when he was a newly minted LCSW in rural Maine. Damian attended the University of Maine and Boston College and was previously an assistant professor at the United States Air Force Academy.
Dr. Imad Melhem: Dr. Melhem is the chief medical officer at Diversus Health and has extensive experience in developing and improving mental health services. Born and raised in Lebanon, he completed his psychiatric residency at the University of New Mexico and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Harvard’s Massachusetts General and McLean hospitals. He carries a Master-of-Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University and the Certified Physician Executive credential through the American Association for Physician Leadership.
Billie Ratliff: Billie is the director of behavioral health at UCHealth Memorial Hospital. A licensed clinical social worker, Billie has worked in the behavioral health realm for 37 years. In 2010, Billie helped restructure Memorial’s model for delivery of best-practice care to behavioral health patients in an acute medical setting. She is active on numerous committees related to helping people with behavioral health disorders.
Juan Recinos: Juan is chief operations officer of Bright Futures Psychiatry, a private mental health practice serving children and adults in Colorado Springs. He has also served as chief strategy officer at AspenPointe (now Diversus Health) and as director of operations for Valley Wide Health System in Alamosa. Juan has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in healthcare administration from Chapman University.
Sam Stephenson: Sam is the executive director of Converge, a Colorado Springs arts and literature nonprofit, and a social worker with the Colorado Office of Respondent Parent Counsel. He has a master’s degree in social work from Metropolitan State University of Denver. Sam has a passion for the Colorado Springs community, mental health work, and creating social systems that make people feel better.