Frankie Roberts
President
Frankie Roberts
President
Born and raised in Wilmington, NC, Frankie Roberts owned and operated a community-based barbershop for approximately 18 years where he received his informal education in community organizing, job development, relationship building, and individual/family counseling. After losing his brother to incarceration and addiction, Mr. Roberts co-founded LINC Inc., a nonprofit agency that provides shelter and services for men and women returning from prison. LINC’s mission is to educate and motivate youth to make positive life choices while empowering men and women returning from incarceration to be productive members of our community. LINC has successfully helped reintegrate over 1200 men and women who have been released from prison since 2002; 92% of which have remained out of prison. In 2006, LINC, Inc. received “Public Organization of the Year (Non-Public Sector)” by the Public Administration Program at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Mr. Roberts won “Entrepreneur of the Year Award” in 2011. He is the past Chairman of the Department of Social Services’ Board of Directors, member of Criminal Justice Partnership Board, member of Cancer Outreach Board through New Hanover Regional Medical Center, and past member of the Juvenile Crime Commission.
Kenny House, LCAS, CCS
Vice President
Kenny House, LCAS, CCS
Vice President
Employed at Coastal Horizons Center since January of 1979, Kenny oversees the Behavioral Health Services – including the Prevention, Outpatient Treatment, and Primary Care Integration programs. Mr. House is a Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist and Certified Clinical Supervisor with over 30 years of experience in the substance abuse and mental health field. He has been involved in program development that has covered a wide range of services from prevention to outpatient treatment for both adult and adolescent populations. Mr. House is the Vice-President of Clinical Services for Coastal Horizons Center- a local private, nonprofit agency serving residents of New Hanover, Pender, and Brunswick counties – and the Eastern Region of NC via Prevention and HIV/Early Intervention services. He was a co-investigator for a clinical trial utilizing Buprenorphine (Suboxone) and helped to lead a federally funded research project utilizing telemedicine in identifying HIV & Co-Occurring Disorder risk indicators in rural areas.
Roxanne Elliott, MS
Secretary/Treasurer
Roxanne Elliott, MS
Secretary Treasurer
Roxanne Elliott is the Policy Director for Community Health Services of FirstHealth of the Carolinas in Pinehurst, NC. Ms. Elliott collaborates with community partners to develop and implement plans for policy work at the local, state, and federal levels in the areas of access to care, opioid use disorder/substance use disorder, health disparities and chronic disease prevention. She has oversight responsibility for identifying areas of opportunity with regards to community health initiatives, implementation of evidence-based programs, coordination of marketing campaigns and evaluation of programs. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from West Virginia University and her Master of Science degree from The American University.
C.D. Hoop Morgan, III
C.D. “Hoop” Morgan, III
Mr. Morgan is the Founder/Chairman of The Forté Institute, LLC a global behavioral sciences firm best known for developing and providing innovative people, process, and interpersonal performance improvement solutions. Morgan is the author/developer of the proprietary, computerized Forté Interpersonal Communication Style Profile. He is a graduate of Missouri Southern State University, earning a BSBA, with minors in psychology and journalism. His educational background also includes certificates in Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Reinventing Your Business Strategy at Sloan School of Management and the Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives and Dealing with Difficult People in Difficult Situations at the Harvard Law School.
Jason Jerry, MD
Jason Jerry, MD
Dr. Jerry is a psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist who practices at FirstHealth of the Carolinas. He served as the Medical Director of the Behavioral Services Department for six years and was the Medical Staff President of FirstHealth in 2023.
Prior to coming to Pinehurst, he worked at the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center at the Cleveland Clinic for nearly seven years. During his time in Cleveland, he served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He has worked in the field of addictions for over 20yrs, authored several peer-reviewed articles related to addictions and has lectured to physicians, medical residents and students, and the public on a wide array of topics related to substance use disorders.
In 2014 and 2016, he was presented with the President’s Award by the Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association for his work in addictions. He was awarded the Addiction Treatment Professional of the Year, by the Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County in 2016. In 2016, he received the Attorney General’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Community Partnerships for Public Safety, for efforts to combat healthcare crises in Northeast Ohio as part of the U.S. Attorney’s Northeast Ohio Heroin and Opioid Task Force, by Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the 64th Annual Attorney General’s Awards Ceremony in Washington, DC.
Max Ashworth
Max Ashworth
Max Ashworth has lived in southeastern North Carolina his entire life. Since 2015, Max has worked as an attorney at the New Hanover County Public Defender’s Office. Max has represented thousands of citizens in criminal courts and defended parents in Department of Social Services proceedings. He is keenly aware of the dynamic between addiction, poverty, and crime.
Max is a past president of the New Hanover County Bar Association, a member of the North Carolina Forensic Evidence panel, and a recipient of Chief Justice Paul Newby’s Professionalism Award. Outside the courtroom, Max enjoys coaching Little League baseball and building furniture.
Michelle Gunn
Michelle Gunn
Ms. Gunn serves as a member of QENO Advisory Council and a member of New Hanover County’s Health and Human Services Board. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, minor in psychology and has extensive experience in the non-profit sector arena. Michelle is a certified trainer of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM). CRM’s goal is to help to create “trauma-informed” and “resiliency-focused” communities that share a common understanding of the impact of trauma and chronic stress on the nervous system and how resiliency can be restored or increased using this skills-based approach. She works with LINC as a Special Projects Coordinator and Coastal Horizons as the Recidivism Reduction Services Program Director.
Father John Kane
Father John Kane
Father Kane is a Virginia native and has been in the Raleigh area since 2005. He attended seminary in Philadelphia, and received his bachelor’s in philosophy, a Master of Divinity degree and a Master of the Arts degree concentrating on Holy Scripture. He has been an assistant pastor (called parochial vicar in the Catholic Church) at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Chapel Hill and at Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh. He is now the pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
Meagan Roy
Meagan Roy
Meagan Roy graduated from the Tides program in 2021. With the help and support of the program, Meagan now has 5 years of recovery and gained a new sense of hope and purpose.When I first got to Tides, I was welcomed by the women in the program and the staff. The environment was very structured. We participated in weekly meetings, an intensive outpatient program, church, assignments, and we had a curfew. This gave me the opportunity to focus on myself and build new habits. I was able to plan for the kind of future I wanted to have. I learned how to be a mother and a productive member of society. The hardest part of my recovery was forgiving myself for everything that comes along with being an addict and accepting where I was in my life.
In the process, I gave myself grace and learned to love myself. I built healthy relationships with the people in the program as well as reconciled my relationships with my family. I truly believe it would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the tools I learned and the foundation that was built being a part of Tides. It changed every aspect of my life and helped shaped the woman and mother I am today.”
Since graduating, Meagan has worked at a dentist’s office as one of the lead Dental Assistants. She has a fiancé and beautiful daughter. Meagan joins us as an Ex officio board member dedicated to giving back to the community that helped her transform her life.