OPEN MINDS Consultants & Advisors

Nancy Thaler, M.S., OPEN MINDS Advisory Board Member & Vice President of Operations, Liberty Healthcare Corporation, brings experience and expertise encompassing the design, development, and operations of human service organizations and systems in both the private sector and in state and federal government. This experience includes policy research and development, program and service design with extensive experience designing programs for individuals with challenging behaviors, budgeting and financial management, quality management, service integration, and strategic planning.

In the private human service sector, Ms. Thaler’s experience ranges from special education teacher, direct care worker, and live-in group home manager, to supervisor and administrator, including serving as the Director of Residential and Vocational Services for Ken-Crest Services, a large non-profit agency serving people with disabilities in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Ms. Thaler served as the Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary for Mental Retardation from 1993 to 2003. In this position, she administered a system that served over 80,000 children and adults with a budget of $2 billion and over 4,000 employees; planning and executing significant expansion of the service system, while closing six public institutions. She presided over a project to transform and standardize a county-administered system which involved the development of web-based technology to support the new standardized business processes related to individual planning and service delivery, financial management and quality management. Ms. Thaler served as the Director of Quality Improvement Strategies for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), leading the development of the application states must use to apply for Medicaid HCBS waivers and redesigning the federal agency’s over sight process.

Ms. Thaler has a Master of Human Organization Science from Villanova University, and is the recipient of the 2003 Censoni Award of Excellence in Public Services from the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS), the 2003 Leadership Award from the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) and the 1992 Award fro Contribution to Non-Aversive Behavioral Intervention from The National Association for People with Severe Handicaps (TASH).