Jannus

Formerly Mountain States Group

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Our Board of Directors

NOTE: Click on the board member’s name to get biographic information.

Board MemberPosition
John CurtisPresident
Margaret Henbest MS, CPNPVice President
Ann D. MorseSecretary
Fernando VelozTreasurer
Shaura LarsonMember
Dr. Danielle DaviesMember
Gina FinleyMember
Susan Downs-KarkosMember
Molly O’LearyMember
Moses MukengeziMember
Babette MuntingMember

John Curtis (Boise, ID) President

John Curtis, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Fahlgren, supports clients in the Rocky Mountain region and manages the firm’s newest office in Boise. John has nearly 30 years’ experience in branding, marketing, creative services, communications, executive visibility, social media and public relations with global companies like HP, Philips Lighting, and American Express. He is highly regarded for his ability to align sound strategy with out-of-the-box thinking to exceed desired results. John defined and led the 2011 Halt the Hunger community fundraising campaign for the Idaho Foodbank, which generated 1.9 million meals for the Foodbank in 30 days. He guides the agency’s work for Simplot that includes public relations, branding, positioning and messaging, media planning and buying, and social media engagement. Prior to joining Fahlgren Mortine, John directed all branding, marketing, public relations and social media for Scentsy, a $500M direct-selling company based in Meridian, Idaho. John previously worked for New York City-based Ketchum Public Relations. John recently completed a one year LDS mission in Nashville Tennessee.

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Margaret Henbest, M.S., PNP (Boise, ID) Vice President

Margaret has been involved both professionally and as an elected official in advocating for the health care needs of Idahoans for almost two decades. A former professor of nursing at BSU, Margaret was first elected to the Idaho House of Representatives in 1996, and for 12 years worked to address the needs of the uninsured and the underinsured as well as efforts to improve the safety, quality and affordability of the health care citizens receives. In 2009, Margaret became the Executive Director of the Idaho Alliance of Leaders in Nursing (IALN) and the Nurse Leaders of Idaho, a professional nursing leadership membership organization. Margaret retired as a pediatric nurse practitioner at St Lukes Regional Health System CARES unit, after 22 years of service. Under her leadership in 2011, IALN and the Idaho Hospital Association became co-leads of the Idaho Nursing Action Coalition which joins 25 other states in the Future of Nursing, Campaign for Action an initiative of the RWJF and AARP. The goal of the Campaign is to improve nursing’s ability to respond to the challenges of a transformed health care delivery system.

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Ann D. Morse (Washington, DC) Secretary

Ann Morse served 33 years in the Washington, D.C. office of the National Conference of State Legislatures before retiring in 2021. As Federal Affairs Counsel, she directed NCSL’s Immigrant Policy Project and staffed the NCSL Executive Committee Task Force on Immigration and the States. These initiatives provided state lawmakers with research on federal immigration policy, state and local innovative programs, and state legislation related to immigrants. Ann also staffed the NCSL Hunger Partnership, an NCSL Foundation for State Legislatures’ initiative to raise the visibility of hunger in America and identify effective public-private partnerships to improve the availability and accessibility of food for hungry families.

Ann is a graduate of The George Washington University, receiving a Master of Arts in Science, Technology, and Public Policy, and a Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies, with a concentration in Chinese. Ann was awarded the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowship in Public Policy in 2007 and conducted comparative research on immigration and integration policies in New Zealand and the United States.

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Fernando Veloz (Boise, ID) Treasurer

Fernando has been in the health industry for over 20 years. He is the Chief Financial Officer at M S Administrative Services, Inc., a Meridian company that provides third party administrative services, and specializes in employee benefits.  Fernando was one of the founding board members of the Idaho Health Insurance Exchange, currently known as Your Health Idaho, having testified to the Idaho state legislature on behalf of bringing the exchange into the state of Idaho. Fernando, along with other well-known board members, helped guide Your Health Idaho to become one of the few true insurance Marketplaces where Idahoans could shop for insurance. Your Health Idaho successfully provides coverage for up to 90,000 members and continues to serve as a portal for health insurance shopping. Fernando presided on the Finance Committee and Chaired the Marketplace Committee while serving on the Your Health Idaho, Exchange Board. In addition, Fernando also served as the chairman of the Employers Health Coalition of Idaho (EHCI,) a non-profit entity that works to keep those responsible for employer sponsored health plans informed of legislation, regulations and other external factors impacting their roles in providing employer sponsored health benefits. While serving on the board of EHCI, his vision is to grow the membership and educate member organizations to become the “go-to” entity for all employer health related matters, utilizing all available resources the valley has to offer.

He is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Idaho, with the Chartered Global Management Accountant and Personal Financial Specialist designations (American Institute of CPA’s) and a member of the Idaho Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In addition, he is a Certified Business Manager with financial acumen. He has an extensive cost accounting background with emphasis on profitability. His work with small businesses, have helped them navigate their strategic plans and become successful and profitable while managing their costs.

Fernando loves to spend time with his family and is an avid golfer that prefers Idaho’s summers, although in the winter months, he still loves to be outside also serving on the board of the Professional Ski Instructors of America – Northern Intermountain Division.  His role is a Program Director for the Boise Adaptive Snowsport Education, adaptive ski and snowboard school, and volunteer ski instructor helping to teach adults and children with disabilities to ski. He served as a Special Olympics coach and continues to dwell on what his professional and personal strengths can offer to others and help them to succeed.

He is passionate about what he does and it shows in his enthusiasm and level of service to the community.

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Shaura Larson (Coeur d’Alene, ID) Member

Shaura has been an advocate for early childhood mental health for over twenty years. In 2001 she received her undergraduate degree from George Fox University near Portland, OR and began her professional career advocating for children in family violence situations. Shaura relocated to Coeur d’alene, ID and received her Master’s of Education in School and Community Counseling and went on to receive her Idaho counseling license. She spent several years providing counseling at the local non-profit Dirne Health Clinic (now Heritage Health).

In 2007 Shaura went on to provide mental health consultation for North Idaho College Head Start, where she served for thirteen years. During her time at Head Start she helped implement social-emotional learning programs and provided consultation and support to staff and caregivers. She had a particular focus and passion in providing in-home training and consultation to parents involved with Children and Family Services. In 2016 Shaura completed her training to be a Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Practitioner. She implemented TBRI program-wide at Head Start, assisting staff and caregivers in using TBRI techniques and interventions in the classroom and at home. Over the last twenty years Shaura has done consultation and training for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, local school districts and local non-profit organizations. She was a founding member of Region I Children’s Mental Health Trauma-focused Subcommittee.

Shaura currently focuses her time on her family, however she continues to be involved in the community as a volunteer. In addition to Jannus, she is a board member at Village of Hope, a Coeur d’alene based non-profit focused on supporting the foster care community.

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Dr. Danielle Davies (Boise, ID) Member

Dr. Danielle Davies is a family medicine physician and faculty member at the Family Medicine Residency of Idaho- Nampa Program, a Federally Qualified Health Center and Residency Program serving vulnerable populations in the Treasure Valley. Danielle graduated from Villanova University outside Philadelphia, PA with a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Honors studies. She attended medical school at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University in New Jersey, her home state. Danielle moved to Idaho for residency training in family medicine that included rural rotations in Shoshone, Cottonwood and McCall. Upon graduation she joined the faculty at FMRI. Danielle has served on the Operations Committee and has coordinated the Morbidity and Mortality conference. She is also the curricular lead for the women’s health rotation. With the ultimate goal of bringing more primary care physicians to Idaho, Danielle has joined the newly opened Nampa Program which will bring another residency program to Canyon County.  Danielle gained first-hand knowledge of our global community through volunteer efforts in home-building in border towns of Mexico, a medical clinic for Nicaraguan refugees living in Costa Rica, education efforts in El Salvador, tent clinics for Tibetan refugees in Spiti Valley, India and she achieved proficiency in medical Spanish through an intensive language course in Peru.

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Gina Finley (Boise, ID) Member

Gina Finley is currently a business strategy project manager at HP, Inc., where she is part of the HP Multi-cultural Impact Network, serves as a mentor in the HP Women’s Impact Network, and an ally to the HP LGBTQ PRIDE Business Impact Network. Gina brings 15 years of valuable experience spanning program development, business analysis, planning, competitive intelligence and strategy, marketing, entrepreneurship, and career coaching. Her experience includes various industries including high-tech (HP, Inc.), financial services (Wells Fargo Bank), non-profit (Global Talent), and small business ownership.

Gina earned her MBA from the University of Montana. Her bachelor’s degree is in Marketing from Montana State University-Billings where she was actively involved in American Indian Business Leaders (AIBL) and awarded National Student Leader of the Year.

She is originally from the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana and a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Indian Tribes. Because of her Native roots, she has a first-hand understanding of the challenges of navigating and ‘walking’ in two different cultures simultaneously – Indigenous culture of collectivism, cooperation and reciprocity and the mainstream dominate U.S. culture of individualism and competition. She has been successful with maintaining her own Native American identity while understanding mainstream U.S. business environments to bring different perspectives together to achieve success, be strategic in negotiations, and help others reach their own potential.

Gina is a firm advocate for diversity, inclusion and equity. She believes that no matter your skin color, nationality, ethnicity, cultural background, language, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or socio-economic status, every single human has tremendous talent, skills, and capabilities that are valuable to communities, organizations and employers. For this reason, from 2015-2018, Gina also helped lead the start-up, development and operations of Global Talent Idaho, a program of Jannus, that supports highly skilled immigrants and refugees through their journeys of career reclamation in the U.S.

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Susan Downs-Karkos (Denver, CO) Member

Susan Downs-Karkos is Manager of Immigrant Integration at The Beacon Fund, a Denver-based social impact organization focused on positive social change. She drives and hones the organization’s national and regional immigrant integration strategy and brings forward emerging opportunities for exploration and investment. Prior to this role, Susan was the Senior Director of External Affairs at Welcoming America, a national network of local governments and nonprofits working to promote inclusive, economically vibrant communities. During her eight-year tenure, Susan developed partnerships, toolkits and trainings to address new and emerging needs in the field related to immigrant inclusion and bridge building with the long-term, receiving community.
Prior to Welcoming America, Susan served as Director of Integration Strategies at Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning, where she managed programs for foreign trained health professionals and health literacy for immigrants. She also served for more than a decade at The Colorado Trust, where as a senior program officer, she designed and managed the Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families Initiative, an $18 million effort to engage immigrants and members of receiving communities in local immigrant integration efforts. She is a former national board co-chair of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) and was involved in the creation of. GCIR’s immigrant integration Toolkit in 2006. She has written and spoken widely about the importance of immigrant integration and strategies for promoting it. She holds a B.A. in psychology from Bates College.

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Molly O’Leary (Boise, ID) Member

Molly O’Leary is a retired business attorney based in Boise, Idaho. Molly graduated from Idaho State University with a B.A. in Journalism and received her J.D. from University of Idaho. Molly has been active in the Idaho State Bar since joining the profession and served as chair of the Young Lawyers Section from 1997-1998, along with serving on the editorial advisory board for the Idaho State Bar journal, The Advocate, from 1995 to 2001. She was an active member of the Business & Corporate Law Section, and served as chair of the Governing Council from 2004-2005, in addition to serving as treasurer for the Section for 2009 and 2010. She was elected by her colleagues in the Fourth Judicial District to serve as a commissioner on the Idaho State Bar Board of Commissioners from July 2010 – July 2013. Molly served as president of the Idaho State Bar in the latter part of her term on the commission, and as president of The Western States Bar Commission in 2016. she is an emeritus member of the University of Idaho College of Law Advisory Council. Molly has also been active in her community, having served on the board of directors for Boise’s North End Neighborhood Association from 2003-2009, during which time she co-founded a forum bringing together Boise’s core neighborhood associations to share ideas and concerns about livability issues affecting Boise neighborhoods. the group, “Collaborative Visioning,” continues to meet on a monthly basis under Molly’s facilitation. in addition, she served on the City of Boise’s Design Review Committee for substandard lots, as well as the Code Enforcement Advisory Committee. Molly served on the Advisory Council for the Boise Metro Chamber’s Small Business Success Center from 2004-2009. In 2003, she was honored as Business Woman of the Year by the Boise and Southeast Idaho Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, and was honored in 2009 as one of the Idaho Business Review’s Women of the Year. Molly also served on the statewide Advisory Council for the Idaho Small Business Development Center for more than a decade prior to her retirement from practicing law. Molly attained her Master Naturalist Certification in 2019 and continues to enjoy learning about and recreating in Idaho’s outdoors, whether camping, kayaking, fly fishing or hiking.

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Moses Mukengezi (Boise, ID) Member

Moses Mukengezi is currently a retail broker at TOK commercial. In his position as a commercial real estate advisor, Moses enjoys the opportunity to network and make personal connections throughout the Treasure Valley. After receiving his Bachelor’s in Sociology from Boise State University in 2017, he started his career in refugee resettlement with the Agency of New Americans where he acted as the employment and donations specialist. Working for refugee resettlement was a full circle moment as he himself had come to Boise as a refugee in 2007 from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Moses has a passion as well as experience in working with the Boise community, especially the refugee community.

Moses has vast experience in translating and has enjoyed working with many different companies and agencies using this skill. Moses furthered his career in public service with the Idaho Youth Ranch working with homeless youth in Boise. He was then given the opportunity to develop the Gemini Project, a men’s mentoring program for former refugees ages 19-25, at Economic Opportunity. Before taking the position at TOK in the fall of 2022, Moses served as a Residential Manager and School Counselor at Cherry Gulch for two years, a therapeutic boarding school. It is through his varied employment experiences that Moses has found a passion for helping youth and unrepresented populations, as well as, making lasting connections to the Boise Community.

When Moses arrived to Boise, it was through soccer that Moses made a connection to the community. After playing high school, club, and college soccer, Moses further broadened his passion for soccer by taking up coaching. Moses started his 12 years of coaching with the Boys and Girls Club through Idaho Rush Soccer. For the past seven years, he has enjoyed coaching for Nations United Soccer, a non-profit that provides refugees between the ages of 9-19 years old with the opportunity to play organized soccer. Nations United Soccer continues to allow Moses to develop connections to the community through soccer that he was provided when he arrived.

Moses loves to spend time playing soccer, floating the river, and going on adventures with his wife and two kids. Moses has had the good fortune to learn eight different languages, and he readily takes advantage of opportunities to speak each one of them, though he is especially fond of French.  Moses loves to explore and learn about the Treasure Valley, Idaho, and America while keeping a global mindset.

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Babette Munting (Boise, ID) Member

Babette Munting started a lifelong career in health care as teenage volunteer at a crippled children’s home and at orphanages in Indonesia, where she spent half her youth. Moving to Idaho in 1980, she worked as a nurses aid at nursing homes as she attended Lewis-Clark State College for degree as a Registered Nurse. She was an RN for 12 years, at Gritman Memorial Hospital in Moscow and at St. Lukes Health Hospital in Boise / Meridian.

 

She completed her master’s degree at Idaho State University in 2001, to become a nurse practitioner for the next 22 years at Terry Riley Health Services in Nampa and at Family Medicine Residency of Idaho, now Full Circle Health. Her specialties of practice are in Family Practice, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C treatment and health care for refugees.

 

Babette volunteered at the Anchor Children’s Hospital in Cambodia for six months in 2000-2001, as a nurse mentor, and for the same organization, Friends Without A Border, at the Lao Friends Hospital for Children in 2023. She also volunteered at a health center in Olishobor Kenya in 2011. Closer to home, she was a volunteer at the Genesis Clinic in Garden City for 16 years and currently at the Vineyard Medical Clinic in Garden City.

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