Our Human Team
VRpatients has a team of brilliantly talented developers, practitioners and consultants making the magic happen behind the scenes. Introducing our human team:
Tom S, aka "Shoe"
Director of Customer Success
Tom’s roll is to fill-in the gaps in sales and onboarding. Following in Duane’s footsteps, Tom has big “Shoes” to fill. When Tom isn’t “feeling the need… the need for speed” at work, he’s probably swinging a golf club or catching rays by the lake with the wife. If he’s not home in Indiana, he’s been known to be “up with the sun” and “gone with the wind” all over the States. Tom brings 20 years of EMS experience to the table, which assists him in prepping new customers for the ultimate rockstar onboard experience.
Quote to Live By: “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” -Ronald Reagan
Duane
Customer Success Specialist
Can you guess how many times Duane has jumped out of a plane? A total of 36. You might think he would want to fly as a superpower, but if he had to choose one, it would be time travel so he could go back and talk to his mom. For VRpatients, on his breaks from skydiving and golfing, he works as a customer service specialist ensuring new customers get the most out of their experience with VRpatients.
What would the theme song be for your life: Let it Be, The Beatles.
Devin
Director of Marketing
After a decade of television Devin left the industry to become a hospital paramedic and genetic research assistant. This journey led him to discover his true passion in digital healthcare innovation. Now, when he is not hosting the Immersive Medical Podcast or speaking at events on cutting-edge healthcare solutions, Devin is driving VRpatients’ organic growth and strategy. When he’s not working, Devin can be found playing games with his family or juggling one of the three books he’s reading. His coffee cup is always full, and he only sleeps when his toddlers allow it.
Stevy,
Bean Counter, aka "Controller"
Stevy brings 13 years of accounting experience with her, mostly at EMSAR, a company that services and repairs medical equipment, so she brings with her a knowledge and understanding of the EMS/Hospital industry, its sales cycle and unique challenges. When not counting beans, Stevy spends a lot of time running around taking care of her 5 children and occasionally, when she gets spare time, she enjoys online gaming, reading, cards, and board games.
Raymond, aka “Rico”
Latin America Market Manager
After spending 11 years in the US Army on active duty, Rico continues working with the army as the Government and Military Liaison for VRpatients. The craziest thing Rico has ever done? Enlisted in the army at 33 years old. A baseball and lion king fan, Rico lights up every room he is in. He always has “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd on repeat to hype himself up for a good game of MLB: The Show.
Which character would you be in a sitcom: Homer.
Reed
Product Lead
Reed is our resident mind-reader, understanding what the customer wants and making it a reality. If he had a superpower, it would be that “anything I imagine becomes reality, because it’s the ultimate super power.” When not working at VRpatients, he’s watching the Secret of Nimh or spending time with his daughters.
Funniest thing someone has ever said to you: My 4 year old pretending to be me, trying to convince her older sisters to open a locked door by saying (in as deep a voice as a 4 year old girl can muster) “Open up, this is daddy.”
Quote to Live By: “Effort Before Outcome”
Heidi, R.N.
SME for Critical Care, Emergency and Pediatrics
A “clinical chameleon” due to her vast experience in all aspects of nursing, Heidi brings that expertise to VRpatients as one of our Subject Matter Experts for nursing, where she consults on content development and UX/UI experience. A film buff whose chili and cornbread slaps, Heidi loves to cheer on her Carolina Hurricanes with her family and fur babies in her spare time.
Theme Song: You Learn by Alanis Morisette
Martha, R.N.
Director of Nursing Innovation and Curriculum Integration
Martha brings her vast nursing and teaching experience to VRpatients where she is tasked with customer success, curriculum integration, thought leadership and anything else she can lend a hand. It’s no surprise to any of us that her superpower is “intuitive harmony.” She practices intuitive harmony on a daily basis at home, where she harbors rescued parrots! Fun Fact: Martha used to be in a performance clog dancing troupe.
Theme Song: Life Less Ordinary by Carbon Leaf
Joy, R.N.
Director of Business Development
Joy brings joy to everyone she meets, especially when it’s a nurse or healthcare educator looking for a customizable, flexible virtual simulation tool to enhance healthcare education. An RN, Joy has spent the better part of her career trailblazing innovative healthcare education simulation products and getting them in the hands of students and clinical educators. A proud Texan, Joy loves to travel, work out, cycle and craft in her spare time.
Theme Song: Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey
Caughey, aka “Coco”
Scrum Master
Caughey (pronounced KO-EEE) could be considered the master puppeteer to all our creatives and developers. Caughey keeps everyone in sync and works in tandem with the Product Owner to scope and track the development of software updates. He also coordinates content creation and SME (subject matter expert) project work. Some of Caughey’s hobbies include cooking, gaming, and working on personal creative projects, including a successful horror video game he launched.
Theme Song: Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears
Paul, R.N., aka “Maz”
Nursing Product Manager/SME Team Lead
When not helping to save lives as a flight nurse for the University of Michigan Medical Center, Paul can be found deep in the trenches of the VRpatients Authoring Tool, where he creates and verifies content scenarios. Fitting for us, since Paul has been told that his superpower is writing treatment protocols!
Quote to live by: Hard Work Beats Talent when Talent Doesn’t WORK HARD by Tim Notke
Curtis
Quality Assurance Engineer
As QA Engineer, Curtis ensures all Product Features work as intended and checks for bugs, failures, deficiencies or other problems. His superpower? Writing. In fact, he claims he could write well enough “to save someone’s life.” Interpret as you please. Curtis is a big time gamer and loves watching old movies.
Quote to Live By: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
Anthony, aka “Gizmo”
Art Lead
Art has been the center of Anthony’s life since he was a child. Introduced by his parent’s as the “artistic son” against his own wishes, he couldn’t fight the inevitable creative soul he was born with. From a teenage film maker to a small town tattoo artist, he eventually found his true passion to be in the virtual world. For the past 6 years, Anthony has been creating realistic virtual environments to evil cartoon babies, attempting to push the limitations of what a computer or VR headset can render. At VRpatients, he is the go-to Environmental Artist.
Theme Song: Never Ending Story by Limahl
Sin
Sin wanted to be a McDonald’s fry cook when she grew up. However, we’re so glad to have her on our team instead as a 3D artist, where she heads up the patient creation workflow, 3D modeling and game implementation of 3D models. Her favorite movie? Mulan, because “Everything about it is great, especially how it empowers girls (and all people) to freely choose their path in life.” She still keeps her cooking dreams alive—she wants to be known as somebody who can cook amazingly. Fun fact: Sin has an uncanny ability to guess almost any language she hears.
Theme Song: every song by The Weeknd
Steve
Lead Developer
Steve was born to develop games. He started doing game development in third grade, and continues to this day as an architect and designer for performance, maintainability, and usability. As the Lead Developer, he also keeps us on our toes by pushing the team to grow and learn new things. When he was not developing games as a kid, he was realizing his dreams of being a professional skateboarder by ollieing off of his parents 12 foot high roof!
Which character would you be in a sitcom: Jim Halpert from The Office mixed with Richard Hendricks from Silicon Valley.
Nat
R&D Lead
When not playing “Among Us” with his kids past their bedtimes, Nathanael evaluates and implements solutions for our team and products, and pushes our boundaries so we don’t settle. He’s motivated, adventurous, and inventive. The most daring thing he’s done? Quitting his comfortable job to join the startup world to make an impact.
Favorite animated movie and why: Transformers – Original Motion Picture, Epic story, best movie soundtrack ever made (80’s hair metal) tied with Interstellar 5555 for basically the same reasons.
Brad
Breaker of Stuff
Brad likes to crack things open and see how they work. While on the path to becoming a kusarigamajutsu master, VRpatients offered him “a gig playing video games all day” to which he replied “This is the way”. Subsequently he ascended the 36 chambers of quality assurance to become a bounty hunter of software bugs (manual tester).
Quote to Live By: “Video games are like beehives, if you strike them hard enough bugs will reveal themselves”
– ancient manual testers proverb
Koury
Program Manager/SME
While Koury considers his superpower to be the ability to play Jedi Mind Tricks on his colleagues, in reality, he’s the guy helping ensure the accuracy and integrity of our medical content creation and case building. In his spare time, you can find Koury kayaking or hiking in the great outdoors or busting some blocks with his keen martial arts skills.
Theme Song: Way of the Ghost by Little Stranger
Depesh
Animator
Depesh is a 3D animator who comes to us all the way from Cape Town, South Africa. He has a unique passion for bringing our patient avatars to life through believable motion. Depesh’s two favorite things (outside animating) are ice cream and long walks on the beach. For real!
Theme Song: Never Too Much, by Luther Vandross
Dustin
Lead Web Developer
When Dustin was a kid, he dreamt of being a pilot—and while he might not be flying through the sky right now, he leads our web team through implementing AT, database, and account management. His pet peeve is long meetings, and his favorite video game is System Shock III because of the immersion and the incredible atmosphere!
Quote to Live By: “We don’t have mistakes, only happy accidents.” -Bob Ross
Theme Song: Heathens by Drive by Truckers
Mason
Technical Artist
Mason is a 3D artist from southern Missouri who traveled to Ohio by taming a herd of buffalo and using them to pull his merchant wagon. Not really. But as a fan of both coffee and sarcasm, Mason is a perfect fit to the team, where his primary responsibility is creating and implementing art assets. Also, Mason was also raised by a baker. So if you’re a good egg he can make ya some bomb cookies.
Superpower: The ability speak in a myriad of accents with ease.
Lindsey
UX/UI Designer
By way of Art Direction and Graphic Design, Lindsey is VRpatients’ UX/UI Designer. She is responsible for improving our user experience and evolving our web and simulation interfaces. When she is not designing, Lindsey can be found outside, practicing her CE-5 protocols or training for her next 20K… well ok, 5K. That’s of course, when she’s not being mom to her four daughters.
Quote to Live By: “People ignore design that ignores people.” – Frank Chimero
Zac
Test Engineer
As Test Engineer, Zac is the guy in charge of testing the simulations to make sure they respond and perform exactly as expected for the end user. This is critical as VRpatients’ team of developers are continuously working on new updates to the application and must ensure every “bug” is found before it is launched. When not de-bugging, Zac can be found in the kitchen cooking up his next culinary masterpiece, geocaching or building new games, just for fun! He is a lover of Norse Mythology.
Theme Song: Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin
Heather
Marketing & Communications Support
At the age of 6, Heather told her entire school she would someday be a veterinarian. While that plan didn’t quite come to fruition, she did find a path to healthcare in the virtual world of VRpatients, where she helps with almost anything Marketing related. Heather loves running, biking and pretty much anything that has to do with being on, in, or near the ocean. Even though she dropped out of Captain’s School, she still loves to be behind the helm of a boat.
Theme Song: I’m Born to Run by American Authors
Randy
Web Designer / SEO
You’d think a guy who’s 6’ 7” would go to a Big10 college on a football scholarship. Nope. Not Randy. Instead, he chose art school, where he studied graphic design and web stuff. An SEO guru who thinks outside the box, Randy is the brain and talent behind our website and also does SEO and UI while keeping a constant eye on all the latest and greatest digital trends.
Connor
Social Media Manager
Connor was never the super outgoing kid in class, he would much rather take a back seat and get a read of how people interacted and treated each other. Today, he uses that ability to analyze the data and optimize VRpatients’ social media presence. In his free time, Connor can most often be seen learning anything he can in the world of Jeep, DC, and Marvel.
Favorite animated movie and why? Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse for it’s new and unique animation style. It reminds him of the comic books he used to read growing up.
Ali
Graphic Designer
A passion driven creator with a playful soul and a hyperactive imagination, Ali creates strong and engaging visual marketing content for the brand and our sales materials. Ali grew up in Kuwait before moving to Ohio and attending University. Growing up, obstacles were in abundance, but the challenges quickly became more fun and gratifying. Ali always strives for a better pixelated version of himself. Ali loves to host car rally events in his off time. Just don’t dare him to a game of hide and seek unless you want to lose!