Staff

Liisa P. Heard Portland Beaverton Taylor Made Addiction recovery team

Clinical Consultant

Liisa P. Heard, MSW, LCSW Oregon State Board of Licensed Social Workers License #L6702

Everyone has a story to tell and I am passionate about helping it unfold by providing guidance and support during the journey of finding its meaning. As a former volunteer and group facilitator with The Dougy Center, I have worked with children and their families as they navigate through the stages of grief and loss and was honored and humbled as I witnessed their journey. Additionally, I have over 25 years experience working with adolescents and adults suffering from substance abuse and mental health concerns. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of working the 12-Steps, I have endeavored to carry this message to alcoholics/addicts and to practice these principles by helping other addicts release themselves from their addictions. I work with individuals, couples, and families in a safe, supportive setting.
Some of the treatment modalities that I utilize are listed, and are not limited to the following:

• Client-Centered Therapy – based on the empowering idea that the client holds the answers to their problems. My job is to carefully listen and strive to understand the client, so that they can tap into their natural ability to grow and improve.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – stresses how our thoughts influence how we feel and what we do. It is based on the belief that thoughts, rather than people or events, cause our negative feelings.

• Family Systems – identifying problems within the family not as the result of particular members’ behaviors, but of the family’s group dynamic. The family is seen as a complex system having its
own language, roles, rules, beliefs, needs and patterns. The goal is to help the individual understand how their childhood family operated, their role within that system, and how that experience has shaped their role in their current family.

• Interpersonal Therapy – focuses on the behaviors and interactions a patient has with family and friends. The primary goal of this therapy is to improve communication skills and increase self-esteem during a short period of time. It usually lasts three to four months and works well for depression caused by mourning, relationship conflicts, major life events, and social isolation.

• Walk and Talk Therapy (WTT) – utilizing nature’s healing power (rain or shine). Most everyone can participate in WTT, as long as there are no medical reasons to prevent someone from walking. WTT is literally moving ahead step-by-step, helping clients get “unstuck” when confronting difficult issues, allowing physical and mental movement toward the issue at hand and being able to take back control which may have seemed out of reach.

Specialties: Groups addressing: work, life, balance, transition; Bereavement: grief & loss; Women’s Issues; Life transitions (college, retirement, empty-nester, end of life); Mindfulness for college athletes to help with improving performance in their chosen sport.

Lowell of the Taylor Made Retreat Addiction recovery team in Portland Beaverton

Lowell MacGregor – Director

Lowell lives one might say to help people to get that monkey off their back. Taylor Hanes shared the process of the 12 steps (which he loved enough to share it with anyone that was willing regardless of who that person was) with Lowell in 1990 and charged Lowell with doing the same with others. This Lowell has done this one on one for decades to great success however has maximized his potential on that front but wanted to share the message with more. When Lowell visited The Retreat in Wayzata, MN – he knew he had found the next level of sharing the 12 steps. Lowell has made it his mission to take the hard driving no-nonsense style of Taylor Hanes sharing of the steps to the next level and see how many people can be helped.

Claudia Kyle – Lead House Manger

As one of the first female Union Electricians in the Pacific Northwest, Claudia helped break down the barriers that had long denied women access to good jobs in the organized construction trades. During her nearly 30-year career, she worked her way up through the ranks and ultimately became an integral part of management teams on multi-million dollar high tech projects in the Portland area.

However, over the course of her life, she developed a soul crushing, life threatening dependence on alcohol that her considerable mental acumen and will-power could not bring to heel. After years of gleaning what she could from repeated stays in traditional treatment facilities, living in sober houses, and grudgingly dipping her toe in the fellowship of AA, her disease was finally arrested at age 66 when she became wholeheartedly engaged in AA’s 12 Step program of recovery as a guest at TMR.

In her new life, she is bringing her organizational and leadership skills to support TMR’s mission as a peer mentor and house manager for us. She has become a vital part of the TMR team.

Sheila Schmid – Yoga Director

Sheila took her first yoga class in 1985 in Bellingham, Washington while attending Western Washington University, and has have been practicing and teaching since. Along the way, she acquired degrees in psychology and counseling, working as a professional counselor for 15 years in schools, hospitals, private practice and community clinics. In 2000, realizing she was doing ‘therapy’ while teaching, and ‘yoga’ while with her counseling clients the true meaning of practice began to emerge – is it an Inside Job. The yoga and the counseling were starting to intersect in the areas of relaxation, breathing techniques, mediation practice, guided imagery, and the yoga poses that alleviate their symptoms of depression, anxiety, and grief.

In 2005, she made the transition into teaching yoga and yoga therapy full time. Sheila has taught all over the country at various studios and locations, conducted retreats and workshops for both students and new yoga teachers. She has opened as well as managed yoga studios both in Portland, and Hood River, OR. Sheila opened, ran, and sold Yoga NW studio in NW Portland 2010 through 2017.

Presently, Sheila teaches privates in home, small groups and online when requested. She serves as a mentor to new and emerging yoga teachers, as well as support in studio ownership. She is a Master Teacher. She teaches a highly curated, professional, safe, accessible yoga class with beginning meditation. Her students feel welcome, in good hands, and get their yoga needs met.

Annie Cozzie – Administrative Assistant

Annie Cozzie is an Administrative Assistant who runs concert box offices as well as accounting for Taylor Made Retreat. She works to ensure the administrative side of TMR runs smoothly and effectively to enable others to focus on client’s success. She also works closely with Lowell MacGregor to guarantee his visions for the future are matched with the functional capabilities of the Retreat.

Outside of Taylor Made Retreat, Annie is a wife and mother who enjoys the outdoors, crafting, and watching her toddler enjoy life to the fullest.

Gary Sanders – Meditation Director

Gary Sanders is originally from the Los Angeles area, where he was the founder of SCV Mindfulness and led up to three weekly groups for over 5 years. He was empowered to lead Buddhist meditation and dharma groups at Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. He helped, from the ground level to found Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist-based recovery program for all addictions, which has now spread worldwide. During his years in Portland, Gary was asked to join the teaching staff at Portland Insight Meditation Community. Although he moved back to Los Angeles in 2021, Gary continues to provide teachings to the PIMC sangha. He also travels frequently and teaches day longs and workshops all around North America.

Britt Speakman – House Manager

Britt Speakman grew up in Seattle, Washington and the Southwest. She lived in Boise, Idaho from 2007 to July of 2021, when she came to Taylor Made Retreat as a client. An artist and musician, she has worked variously in the restaurant and grocery industries and spent the last decade as a baker. Britt is continuing her recovery, living and working at Taylor Made Retreat as a house manager, and transforming her life and relationships, especially with her beloved teenage daughter.

Johnny Dutra – House Manager

Johnny is one of the most vital team members taking care not only of peer support and house management but overseeing the maintenance of the physical facility.

Johnny has been trying for years to finish his college education and was hampered by a nasty drinking habit. His drinking prevented him not only from participation in school but also in his children’s lives.

While working at TMR Johnny is also maintaining honors at Portland State in Biochemistry. But what Johnny might call his greatest achievement is the restoration of his relationship with his children, which he has fully embraced. While working with us he is able to apply the same restorative technique (the 12 steps) to the lives of the clients and aid them in finding the same success.

Patrick Kilbane – Dance/Fitness Instructor

Patrick Kilbane, originally from Seattle WA, has been involved in 12 Step recovery for the last 18 years. Following a relapse after several years of sobriety, Patrick had the opportunity to enter Taylor Made Retreat as a guest in the fall of 2020. It was there that he was immersed in the 12 Steps- a set of simple, spiritual principles and a design for living- that offered him an entirely new perspective and outlook on his life. Patrick’s background as a professional dancer, performance artist, and fitness instructor helped him to develop a unique approach in working with newly sober alcoholics and addicts. He was brought on as a staff member after he successfully completed the program offered at TMR. He stays connected by bringing recovery focused movement and yoga classes to the guests of Taylor Made Retreat.

Brennan Tigner – Executive Chef

Brennan has been involved in 12 Step recovery since he was 18 years old. Being young and sober was a difficult journey. He found the fellowship again at age 30. Through his experience, he has found a new design for living through the trinity of the 12 step program: Unity, Service, and Recovery. He has been involved in many levels of service throughout the recovery community and enjoys living his life in the middle of the fellowship.

Brennan has also been working in kitchens since he was 15 years old. He loves to provide high quality cuisine and bold flavors to the clients and staff at Taylor Made. His vision for the future is to create a rotating menu that features New American, Asian Fusion, Mexican and Italian cuisine.

Brennan’s professional career includes owning and managing restaurants, menu building, recipe creation, staff management and financial planning.

He enjoys his free time by going to 12 step meetings, being of service, and spending quality time with his wonderful and supportive fiancé, Nicole, and their mini-golden doodle, Stormy.

Our Board

Pat Fry

Retired President and Chief Executive Officer, Sutter Health, Sacramento, California

Pat Fry was president and CEO of Sutter Health until his retirement in January 2016. He joined the Sutter organization in 1982 as an administrative resident at Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento, Calif. During his tenure, he worked his way up through the organization in increasingly responsible administrative positions both at the local affiliate and regional levels.

After serving as regional president for Sutter Health’s affiliates in the greater Sacramento region, Fry became president of the organization’s eastern operations. He later assumed leadership of Sutter Health’s Western Division and in 2000 became Sutter Health’s second-in-command, serving as chief operating officer and executive vice president. In 2005, he became president and CEO.

Fry earned his bachelor’s degree in public health administration from the University of California, Davis, and a master’s degree in health services administration from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Larry Boileau

Bio coming soon…

Nick Raggio

Nick was raised in San Francisco, but has lived in Alabama and on Catalina island off the Los Angeles coast. I have been an athlete all of my life playing soccer, tennis, and squash for more than 40 years. He has been an outdoorsman all his life and sails a 48 foot S&S in San Francisco Bay. He is struck by kids who step with the wrong foot into life! So he humbly wants to help!

Clay Poppert

Clay has bee in the sobriety community since 2015 and has proudly assisted with remodeling, repairs, and maintenance of the TMR facility. He has a history in the Commercial Glazing Contracting industry, including founding multiple businesses of his own in both Beaverton, Oregon and Redmond, Washington. He has a Bachelor of Science, Political Science, and a minor in speech communication from Willamette University in Salem, OR.

Matthew Hornyak

I’m a NW native, having been born in Everett, WA and graduated from the University of WA in Seattle. Now happily retired, and living in Portland, from a 25 year career in banking and a 6 year “2nd career” in non-profit management, I enjoy a number of hobbies (skiing, sailing, golf), volunteer work and spending time with my partner and our families. My career was focused in the following areas: customer service, account management, personnel management, business development, fund-raising/grant writing.

Through the years I’ve been a board member of the following NW non-profit organizations: St. Andrew’s House Retreat & Conference Center/Union WA, Kiwanis Club of Olympia WA, United Way of Thurston County/Olympia, Lifelong AIDS Alliance/Seattle, East Bay Harbor Condominium HOA/Olympia, Century Plaza Towers HOA/San Diego, St. Germain Episcopal Church/Hoodsport WA, Capitol Hill Alano Club/Seattle.

Janice Parberry

Janice is a life long student of health and wellness practicing in this field for over 25 years. She feels strongly in the mission and value Taylor Made and a twelve step program.

She looks forward to contributing to contributing to the board and the pursuit of a clean and sober lifestyle.

Laura Davis Ritchie

Laura retired in 2018 after working for Multnomah County Community Justice for 30 years. After serving as a Parole and Probation Officer for 15 years, working primarily in a high-risk drug unit, she joined the ranks of management. Laura retired as a Senior Manager overseeing Justice Reinvestment, Drug Courts, Domestic Violence, Specialty Courts and Generic Supervision. Laura’s passion during her career was to help people make changes to change their lives. Laura also spent a significant part of her career working with the domestic violence systems. She was Chair of the Family Violence Coordinating Council for multiple terms.

Laura has also been an active part of the recovery community for over 33 years.

Patty Louys

I was raised in McMinnville, Oregon, thirty-nine miles from Portland. I attended the University of Oregon for three years, then transferred to San Jose State University in California for a B.A. and a Life Diploma in Education. I received an M.A. degree in Speech Therapy at San Francisco State University, allowing me to teach in Marin County schools.

When both of my parents died, I moved back to McMinnville, Oregon in 1982 to run the family business that included several Texaco service stations, two with car washes and two with convenience stores, featuring Taco Bell, Wienerschnitzel and Dutch Bros. Coffee. I retired and moved to Kona, Hawaii after twenty-four years in the business world.

Now I’m back in the Portland area, with fifty-two years of sobriety. I’m certified to teach Tibetan Buddhism and Qigong, called meditation in motion. I bring both of these once a week to Taylor Made Retreat. It’s truly a place of miracles.

Joie Karnes

For over a decade Joie Karnes, D.Litt, has been Director of Operations at Barbara Karnes Books, a family business at the forefront of end of life education since the 1980s. She earned her liberal arts doctorate in 2006 from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey with

special interests in Women’s Studies and World Religions. An extensive traveler active in recovery for over three decades she has participated with groups across the country as well as internationally. The mother of twins, she and her boys greatly enjoy all the PNW’s great outdoors has to offer.

James Conway

One of Los Angeles’s most respected names in the field of chemical dependency, Jim has worked in the public and private sectors since 1972. He has formulated and directed hospital programs, both inpatient and out patient, as well as free standing day treatment centers.

For more than thirty years, he served as the Program Coordinator and Senior Lecturer for the UCLA Extension Alcohol and Drug Counselor Certificate program. Jim has been passionately involved with various state diversion and Health Professionals programs since 1990, when he was asked to serve the Dental Board of the State of California as a member of the Diversion Evaluation Committee. In 1996, he was approached by the Physician’s Diversion Program of the Medical Board of California and asked to facilitate its first Health Support Group for Physicians with Mental Health problems. He continued to work with this group, in addition to the Health Support Groups for physicians with chemical dependency problems in the greater Los Angeles area. In 2002, he was asked to serve the Lawyers Assistance Program (LAP) as a facilitator, and he established the first groups in Los Angeles. After expanding to four groups weekly, he resigned LAP in February, 2007. He is the founder of Pacific Assistance Group, started in 2006, to serve the needs of health professionals with addiction and/or mental health concerns, who require or choose more individualized attention and focus than is currently being offered in other monitoring programs.

After re-locating to the Northwest in 2013, he continued to work with early intervention programs in Oregon and California for Health Professionals . In addition, he focuses on new and creative programs in Secondary Prevention for Young Adults and for underserved populations in the world of addiction. He continues his educational work as a member of the the Faculty of Portland Community College in the Addiction Counseling Program.

Sam Miller

Sam Miller has served on numerous boards which include PSAC, DRAC, Providence Hospital, SDBA, Friends of the Children, Honor Thy Soldiers, Miracles Club and Portland Community Church. He is most passionate about service to his community. After military service Sam attended university where he studied economics and later attended Marylhurst University. Having spent 25 years as an executive manager, finance director and eventually owner of his own automotive company, he learned how to successfully collaborate with others. Sam also worked for Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. providing food security for second and third world countries. Through this work Sam got to see how communities can thrive with cooperation and strong leadership.

Teddy Roosevelt “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you
care…”

Doug Sprunt

Doug lives and works in Portland, along the lower Cape Fear River in North Carolina and in the Texas hill country.

He is awed and inspired by our innate ability to heal, recover and to help others.

Jack Healey

Jack Healey is an American human rights activist. His focus has been on inspiring the youth to support non-violent activism that would push back oppressive governments and societies.

Jack Healey heads the Washington, D.C. based Human Rights Action Center. His projects include printing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into all passports and bringing Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to power in Burma.

Jack studied at St. Fidelis Seminary for high school and college and received a master’s degree from Catholic University. He was a Franciscan friar for ten years and a Catholic priest for four years. He left the priesthood in 1968 and began work as Director of the Young World Development Program at Freedom from Hunger Foundation USA for five years.

At the Young World Development Program, Healey produced over 300 Walks for Development. A total of $12 million was raised from these walks and given to national and international non-profits, including Meals for Millions, The Free Clinic, and Freedom Farm Co-op of Fannie Lu Hamer. They also funded Catholic Relief Service, Church World Service, Heifer, and Oxfam International and other international non-profit organizations.

From 1973 to 1976, Healey worked at the Center for Community Change (CCC) in Washington, D.C. At CCC, Healey helped to build the Binder Schweitzer Hospital in Mexico and co-directed the Dick Gregory World Hunger Run across the United States. Dick Gregory won the Dawson Award from the Black Caucus for this run. Healey, along with George O’Hara, recruited Muhammad Ali to join Dick’s Hunger Run.

From 1977 until 1981, Healey directed the Peace Corps in Lesotho.

After finishing his tour with the Peace Corps, he worked as the director of Amnesty International USA for 12 years.

Healey has received seven honorary doctorates and spoken in colleges and high schools. He has produced three music albums and Douye, a documentary on Aung San Suu Kyi. Additionally, Healey worked as a consultant to both the Center of Victims of Torture in Haiti, and to comedian Dick Gregory on the topic of world hunger.

Healey helped to start the Reebok Human Rights Foundation, which hands out the Reebok Human Rights Award each year, and two other non-profits, Witness (human rights group) and Equality Now.

Healey gained attention in 1990 when he worked with other human rights activists to block the entrance to a UN Human Rights conference set to take place in Vienna, because the UN refused to seat the Dalai Lama. In 1992, Healey spoke out against the U.S. government when Haitian refugees fleeing harm from a dictatorial government were turned away from the United States border. Healey campaigned to free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

Jack has worked on and produced numerous concerts, films and albums.