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Treatment Advocacy Center Board of Directors

Board of Directors: Biographies

List of board members and their affiliations| Board members' biographies (PDF)

Honorary advisory committee | TAC press kit | Press room

President: Stephen Segal

Stephen Segal is president of the Treatment Advocacy Center and a business executive with a background in mental health issues. Since 1985, he has been president of Family Partners, Inc., a manufacturer of magnetic products for both re-sale and promotional purposes. In the early 1980s, he was president of Resources for Parents at Work, a consulting company for large corporations in America interested in helping employees raise their children well while working. Prior to that he worked as coordinator for the Council on Alcoholism in the Cincinnati Area, a nonprofit voluntary health agency. His educational background includes a masters degree in Health Science from the Department of Mental Hygiene of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and a masters degree in Education from Temple University, with a focus on early child development. His undergraduate degree is from Washington University, where he majored in psychology. He has been active in the Philadelphia community, having served as president of The Miquon School and vice-president of the Germantown Jewish Centre.

Vice President: The Honorable James Cayce

The Honorable James Cayce is a Superior Court Judge in King County, Washington. In 1998, Judge Cayce chaired a task force to create a mental health court in King County. The District Court’s Mental Health Court, just the second of its kind in the United States, was implemented in February 1999. Judge Cayce presided over the daily mental health court calendars until his appointment to the Superior Court in July 2000. He then helped create a program in juvenile court for offenders with co-occurring disorders.

Secretary: Frederick J. Frese, Ph.D.

Dr. Frederick J. Frese is a psychologist with 30 years experience working with persons with serious mental illness. Since retiring from the Ohio mental health system where he served as Director of Psychology at Western Reserve Psychiatric Hospital for 15 years, he has coordinated the Summit County Recovery Project, serving consumers in the Akron area.

He is a graduate of Tulane University where he majored in psychology. Following his graduation, he served as an officer in the Marine Corps in Japan during the Vietnam War. Later, while working as a guard officer for the nuclear weapons arsenal at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida, he experienced his first schizophrenic break. For the next ten years, he was in and out of mental hospitals, often on secure wards. Despite his disability he was able to earn a degree from the American Graduate School of International Management in Phoenix, Arizona, and a masters and doctorate in Psychology from Ohio University.

Dr. Frese has been active as a consumer/provider and advocate in the mental health movement in this country. He currently serves on the board of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and also served on that board from 1994-2001. He founded the Community and State Hospital Section of the American Psychological Association, where he is currently part of the Task Force for the Seriously Mentally Ill/Emotionally Disturbed. In 1999 he received the Hildreth Award, the APA’s highest honor for distinguished service in public service psychology. He is a past president of the National Mental Health Consumers Association. He is also on the Board of Scientific Advisors for Schizophrenia Bulletin. In the past he has served on the boards of the American Occupational Therapy Association and the Ohio Psychological Association. He has also worked as a consultant to the National Institute for Mental Health and the Veterans Administration.

Dr. Frese is the editor of The Role of Organized Psychology in the Treatment of the Serious Mentally Illness, published by Jossey-Bass in 2000. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, and lectures widely around the United States and Canada. Dr. Frese has been featured in the media numerous times, including appearances on CNN and World News Tonight with Peter Jennings; interviews in The Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal; and a featured role in the video “I’m Still Here: The Truth About Schizophrenia.”

Treasurer: D.J. Jaffe

D.J. Jaffe is associate creative director at YR Brands Advertising and is a long-time mental health advocate. He has served on the board of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill as well as the New York State Alliance for the Mentally Ill and New York City Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Mr. Jaffe’s opinion pieces on mental health policy have been published in publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and National Review. He co-founded the Treatment Advocacy Center when he recognized that many decisions affecting the mentally ill were being made by courts, and no organizations were working to educate the courts about mental illnesses. Mr. Jaffe’s work in helping New York State pass Kendra's Law led to the New York Times profiling him in their "Public Lives" column.

Donald F. Eslinger

Sheriff Donald F. Eslinger has been in law enforcement for more than 27 years and has been Sheriff of Seminole County since 1991. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the National Sheriffs’ Association and is past president and Legislative Chairman of the Florida Sheriffs Association. Sheriff Eslinger also sits on the National Board of the Commission on Accreditation for law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA).

Sheriff Eslinger earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences from National Louis University and is a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy (168 th session).

Sheriff Eslinger has demonstrated an interest in and commitment to identifying and resolving issues related to the criminalization of people with severe mental illnesses at the national, state, and local levels. He was invited to testify before Congress at hearings on two bills concerning the diversion of people with severe mental illnesses from the criminal justice system. Under the three-year leadership of Sheriff Eslinger, Florida Partners in Crisis (a statewide mental health and advocacy coalition) was successful in broadening its base of advocacy to include nontraditional stakeholders from the criminal justice system, heightening the awareness and understanding of mental health and substance abuse issues by legislators and their constituents. In 1998, he formed a Mental Health Task Force in his county that has implemented significant diversion programs, including a successful Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) that his office operates.

He spearheaded the effort to reform Florida’s Baker Act to include assisted outpatient treatment. In May 2005, the Florida Legislature passed a resolution (HR 9205) commending Sheriff Eslinger for his successful advocacy, noting “all people with severe mental illnesses will benefit from [his] efforts.”

Jeffrey Geller, M.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Jeffrey Geller currently serves as the Director of Public Sector Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Williams College, a masters of public health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and an MD from the University of Pennsylvania. He did his psychiatric residency at Beth Israel Hospital, followed by an NIMH Fellowship at that same institution. He took a position first at Northampton State Hospital in Massachusetts, then Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh – in both places he made his mark as an advocate for his patients. He then accepted his current position at the University of Massachusetts, where he still spends a portion of his time working directly with patients with severe mental illnesses.

Dr. Geller has been a strong advocate for people with severe mental illnesses for more than 25 years, and is a sought after speaker and prolific researcher and author. Dr. Geller has fought for the right for meaningful care for those who do not recognize their illness both as a clinician and as an academic.

He serves or has served as a consultant to public institutions in 12 states and for the U.S Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division in another five states. He is the book review editor for Psychiatric Services, and has been instrumental in gathering personal accounts from people who have experience with mental illness for that publication. He is the author of numerous research papers and studies, as well as the book Women of the Asylum. Dr. Geller won the 1994 Effective Legislative Fellow Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and was honored by the American Psychiatric Association as a Distinguished Fellow in 2002 and the Arnold L. van Ameringen Award winner in 2003.

Dr. Geller's "patients first" approach is well known. One colleague remembers Dr. Geller being asked to come on NPR to speak about advocating for people with serious mental illnesses – but the taping date was also his patient clinic day. He declined the national exposure, saying, "How can I go on a radio show to speak of advocacy after canceling all my patients?"

Carla Jacobs

Carla Jacobs is a founding board member of the Treatment Advocacy Center and has served two terms on the board of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Ms. Jacobs is a leading advocate for people with severe mental illnesses in California. As coordinator of the California Treatment Advocacy Coalition, she guided the successful grassroots campaign for passage of Assembly Bill 1421, known as "Laura's Law," which brought assisted outpatient treatment to our nation's most populous state. She is currently the executive director of Plan of California, an organization that provides treatment planning and services for individuals with severe mental illnesses.

Jonathan Stanley

Jonathan Stanley has been instrument in the success of the Treatment Advocacy Center as an original board members and as a long-time advocacy.  In his many roles, he served as Acting Executive Director and as Associated Director for Advocacy.  In 2005, Jonathan Stanley was honored with the Anchor Achievement Award for Leadership and Excellence in Mental Health Advocacy. This award is presented annually to an individual or an organization whose leadership, commitment to, and promotion of mental health issues has enhanced the lives and opportunities for all people diagnosed with a mental illness.

Gerald R. Tarutis, Esq.

Gerald Tarutis is a partner in the law firm Tarutis & Baron, Inc., P.S., whose practice focuses in two major areas. He represents individuals with mental and physical impairments and their family members with issues involving Medicaid/Medicare, disability entitlements including the Social Security Administration, guardianships, estate planning and trust formation and administration. He also represents individual health care providers in regard to licensure, hospital relations, transactional analysis, business formation and health development issues. Mr. Tarutis is routinely appointed by various state and federal courts to act as guardian ad litem.

Barbara Boyle Torrey

Barbara Boyle Torrey is a visiting scholar at the Population Reference Bureau. She was previously the Executive Director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBSSE) at the National Research Council (NRC) for nine years. During that time, DBASSE managed several hundred study committees that applied the best behavioral and social science research to public policy questions.

Prior to coming to the NRC, Ms. Torrey was President of the Population Reference Bureau, a non-profit center of national and international population research and information dissemination. Ms. Torrey's other previous positions include serving as Chief of the Center for International Research at the Bureau of the Census, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Income Security Policy at the Department of Health and Human Services, fiscal economist at the Office of Management and Budget, and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa.

She studied International Relations and Development Economics in both undergraduate and graduate school at Stanford University. She has published a number of articles on the microeconomics of aging, global population and environmental issues in developing countries, and income and poverty trends in industrial countries in such journals as Science, Nature and the American Economic Review. She has edited two books on poor children in rich countries and on population and land use in developing countries. She is a fellow of the AAAS and has served on the boards of the Luxembourg Income Study, the Population Association of America and the Executive Council of the AAAS. She is currently on the board of the Population Reference Bureau, The Stanley Medical Research Foundation, and is on the Science Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. She has also been a member of the NRC Committee on Population and the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change.

E. Fuller Torrey, M.D.

E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., is a research psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness (bipolar disorder). He is the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and Executive Director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which supports research on schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. His work at the Stanley Medical Research Institute includes participating in ongoing collaborative research on viruses as a cause of these diseases. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at the George Mason University School of Law.

From 1976 to 1985, he was on the clinical staff of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., specializing in the treatment of severe psychiatric disorders. From 1988 to 1992, Dr. Torrey directed a study of identical twins with schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. His research explores viruses as a possible cause of these disorders; he has carried out research in Ireland and Papua New Guinea.

He was educated at Princeton University (B.A., Magna Cum Laude), McGill University (M.D.), and Stanford University (M.A. in Anthropology), and trained in psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He practiced general medicine in Ethiopia for two years as a Peace Corps physician, in the South Bronx in an O.E.O. Health Center, and in Alaska in the Indian Health Service. From 1970 to 1975, he was a special assistant to the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Torrey is the author of 20 books and more than 200 lay and professional papers, including the following. Some of his books have been translated into Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.

MORE: Expanded biography, including books published | Full vitae

Robert H. Yolken, M.D.

Dr. Yolken is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, who was trained at Harvard, Yale, and NIH. He has been at Johns Hopkins University since 1979, where he holds the Theodore and Vada Stanley Professorship in Neurovirology and is Director of the Division of Developmental Neurovirology. He has authored over 300 professional papers and book chapters, is an editor of the widely used Manual of Clinical Microbiology, and recently coauthored (with Dr. Torrey) Beasts of the Earth: Animals, Humans, and Disease.

Emeritus Board Members

Emeritus Board Member: James E. Copple

Mr. Copple has a diverse background in education and school administration, public relations and strategic communications, and public policy. For almost two decades, he has held executive leadership positions in nonprofit organizations whose missions are to prevent crime, violence, and substance abuse. Under Mr. Copple’s leadership, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) passed the Drug-Free Communities Act and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) coordinated the passage of the Crime-Free Rural State Grant Initiative. Mr. Copple is a highly regarded speaker and writer in the substance abuse, mental health, and violence prevention field. He holds a B.A. in history from Eastern Nazarene College, a Masters of Divinity degree from Nazarene Theological Seminary, and has done further graduate work at Boston College, John Hopkins University, and doctoral work in the History and Philosophy of Education at the University of Kansas.

Emeritus Board Member: Thomas N. Faust

Thomas Faust is executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA). Prior to joining NSA, he was sheriff of Arlington County, Virginia. He has more than 20 years of criminal justice and law enforcement experience. He received a masters degree in Public Administration from George Mason University and has attended training courses. He is a past president of the American Jail Association. During his tenure at NSA, he has raised awareness about issues related to untreated mental illness and the criminal justice system.

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