ABOUT

OUR TEAM

KIMBERLY WHITER

Event Creator and Organizer

Hello Leaders in the Care Economy! Many of you I have met. Many of you have become friends. For those of you that I have not met, here is my story.

I spent over a decade cultivating a career in higher education. In 2019, I was presenting at a conference and was approached by a gentleman. He turned out to be one of the original Cofounders for a business in the care economy. I am now the full owner and CEO for that business! (Elder Care Solutions)

Starting a new career was a jolt, but I took some core practices with me from academia: Know your field and Be part of the conversation. So, I joined professional organizations, dove into the literature and reports for our field, and started networking. In 2021 I was sitting on Robin Week's front porch (see her profile below!). I told her "We need a space where those of us working day-to-day with family caregivers can get together! We need to know each other. We need to figure out how to work together!" The Care Colloquium was born!

It made sense to me to get the big thinkers together. The leaders in business, nonprofit, authors, and advocates, that are all working hard, like me, to build solutions that offer support to the growing masses of family caregivers across our country. With our brains together, magic has to happen! I mean, I know how your life can change from a connection you make at a conference!

I'm a queer, woman-entrepreneur, previous family caregiver, mother, and a Millennial. There are societal issues surrounding care that definitely upset me and I know we can fix it...together!! My goals for the Colloquium?

I want us to get to know one another, as friends, and start supporting and lifting up one another's work.
I want EVERYONE to leave with a collaboration planned with another organization!
With our brilliant minds together, I want epic thought leadership on Big Care Issues we are all witnessing in our work.

This event is going to MAKE AN IMPACT on the care economy. I can't wait to see you all in Roanoke, VA. Now check out the incredible team making this event tremendous and all the major brains we've brought together to speak and share their work, insights, expertise, and passions.

BONNIE CHAVEZ

Community Solutions and Sponsorship Expert

I am the CEO and founder of Building Beloved Communities, a consulting firm for small businesses and nonprofits specializing in community-centered business solutions. I bring a wealth of knowledge to businesses and organizations on project management, strategic planning, operations, and cultivating practices that create sustainable and creative solutions. Additionally, I empower leaders through executive coaching, focusing primarily on women of color, although all are welcome. My contribution to The Care Colloquium will ensure innovative community involvement and strategic partnerships so this amazing conference can gain national recognition and grow annually.

As a proud Latina woman who recently became a caregiver to both my parents, I am keenly invested in the conversations that will take place at The Care Colloquium. The big issues tackled by the minds present are acutely relevant to my new day-to-day life.

Additionally, from the Latina perspective, it is challenging to navigate cultural tradition with modern caregiving processes. Reconciling online appointments and government forms that don’t translate into my parents' regular life is difficult. Also, as a working woman, I struggle to juggle running my business and doing the work I love with helping my parents, who I also love, on an increasingly regular schedule. It is important we ensure the elders in our communities are shown deep care and respect while encouraging their caregivers to access the support needed to thrive.

ROBIN WEEKS

Care Economy Sage

I have utilized my background in business and experiential learning over the past 12 years to design and deliver leadership and team development trainings with Fortune 100 and 500 companies. I started My Pivotal Point in 2010 to focus on working regionally with small to mid-size businesses helping them develop strong managers and leaders for their growth through coaching and leadership development trainings. In 2020, after caring for my Mother for over 6 years, I launched My Pivotal Point, Caring for Caregivers. This business is focused on supporting Family Caregivers and their employers through coaching, education, and support.

Supporting The Care Colloquium is an opportunity to gain and share knowledge and to generate new collaborations that I can use to support unpaid family caregivers. I know the difficulty family caregivers have finding the right answers, navigating resources, and coping with the stresses of caregiving and working. I am on a mission with My Pivotal Point, Caring for Caregivers to help caregivers achieve harmony with their caregiving role and their own physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing through education and personalized support. My vision is that no caregiver walks their journey alone.

With our aging population, we need new ideas and supports for family caregivers. This colloquium will bring together companies and organizations with products and services that are creating easier ways for caregivers to walk their PATH.

DEBBIE REARDON

Marketing Wizard

With over 36 years of marketing experience, I have done it all; television, radio, digital, print, outdoor, B2B, video production, graphic design, film production and some very successful and crazy out of the box marketing campaigns. Since April 2015, I have been the chief Buzz Maker at Queen Bee Marketing as well as its owner. Currently my marketing buzz is fascinated with all things related to digital marketing, especially social media marketing. I’ve helped to tackle tough marketing challenges in my career that not only benefit my clients, but also benefit the customers and our communities.

Four years ago, I lost my 80-year-old mother to an abrupt and devastating vascular aneurysm. My father and mother had been married for 61 years when this happened, and I learned quickly that my father didn’t know how to do any of the household chores. I started teaching him all those million things he needed to know to take care of himself. While he is healthy and independent, he is also 3 hours away and loneliness and depression are a major concern for me. He has since been diagnosed with dementia, mild for now, but I have an ever-nagging worry about what life will look like when it progresses.

Like so many people my age, worried about their aging parents, I am frequently tormented by questions like “What are we going to do?” and “How in the world will we ever afford it?”. This gathering of people devoted to finding answers on how to help the aging and the people taking care of them provides a seed of hope that there are solutions to these big challenges. The Care Colloquium is the living embodiment of my current life. It’s about me and my personal story. That is why myself and my company Queen Bee Marketing are involved with this fascinating and hopefully groundbreaking conference. At the end of the day, I’m just a daughter wanting to make sure my dad is taken care of well.