Our Mission

​Guiding our Veterans through their challenges

Our Vision

For our Veterans and their Families to be Secure, Productive and Confident

​Homeward Bound Adirondacks Board of Directors

Mark Moeller
​​Board President

Mark lives in Tupper Lake, NY. He is the President and CEO of CBNA Insurance Agency, a subsidiary of Community Bank, NA. Mark served as an Army officer on active duty from 1981 until 2001 in armor and cavalry units retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. He is a graduate of Clarkson University, the University of New Hampshire and the US Army Command and General Staff College.

Robert Ross
Vice President​

Robert  has been serving as the CEO of St. Josephs Addition and Treatment Recovery Centers for nine years. Ross lives in Saranac Lake. He has 40 years of experience in the field of healthcare management and has provided management consultation services to healthcare providers and private companies in the U.S. and abroad, including development and implementation. Ross has served as Executive Deputy Director of New York State's Division of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse and Deputy Director for New York City's Bureau of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

David Aldrich
Board Treasurer

David lives in Lake Placid. He is a retired Executive Director of Harrietstown Housing Authority and served in the United States Navy Submarine Service.

Valerie Ainsworth
​Executive Director (Part time)

Valerie is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in PTSD. She has worked in the mental health field for over thirty years as a therapist and administrator. Valerie has incorporated her life long love of horses into her work with trauma. She is currently the Executive Director of the Mental Health Association in Essex County. Valerie's father was a WWII pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force and she is married to a Vietnam era Veteran.

​Stephen M. Erman
Secretary

Steve Erman is a regional development consultant.  He was Economic Advisor to the NYS Adirondack Park Agency from 1982 to 2010.  After leaving State service, Steve served three terms as President of the Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA), a 14 County economic development organization.  He was a management consultant in Washington, D.C. before moving to the Adirondacks.  His consulting work included projects related to military base and defense plant closures.  Steve served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1969-1975. (364th General Hospital, Albany).   He lives in Saranac Lake with his wife, Margot Gold.  Steve and Margot have two grown children, Molly who lives in New York City, and Sam who lives in Portland, Oregon.

Kathleen Chace
Board Member

Kathleen is the daughter of LT. Commander JF Chace UDT # 22 and granddaughter of Dr. Arthur F. Chace who was a colleague of Dr. Trudeau at the turn of the 20th century. She has been a resident of Lake Placid for 14 years. Active on the Board of Lake Placid Center for Arts and the Co-founder of Tri Lakes Youth Lacrosse with her husband since 2001. She has been a Real Estate broker for more than 25 years.

Major General (Retired) Robert John Kasulke MD MPA FACS

A 1996 graduate of the Army War College, he serves as the intermediary between the Surgeon General of the Army and the 27,500 medical members of the eastern U.S. Army Reserve. His expertise is health care policy and cost analysis. He practiced with the Saranac Lake Surgical Group from 1983-89 and now practices vascular and general surgery in Adams and Carthage, NY.

​Professional Advisory Board

Mark Graham, Major General, US Army (Retired)

Colonel (Ret.) Eric Olsen
Past Executive Director

​eolsen@hbadk.org

Laurie Leitch, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Co-Director, Threshold Globalworks, LLC

​Co-developed the Trauma Resiliency Model and the Social Resilience Model, which provide a neurobiologically-based set of self-regulation skills that enhance individual and systems-level resilience.

​Edward Tick, Ph.D
Clinical Psychotherapist

Founder of Soldier's Heart, a therapeutic program focused on PTSD. He is author of War and The Soul: Healing Our Nation's Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Brigadier General (Ret.) Loree K . Sutton, M.D.
​Immediate Past President

​As the ranking psychiatrist in the U.S. Army, she served as director of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE) and established the National Intrepid Center of Excellence {NICoE), a state-of-the-art research, diagnosis and treatment center for Service members and Veterans diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Psychological Health Conditions at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.

Garry Trudeau

Internationally syndicated cartoonist advocates for military service members through his Doonesbury comic strip, now celebrating 40 years. Garry's great grandfather pioneered tuberculosis treatment and research in Saranac Lake.