Experience I Bring to the Table

I’m a psychologist by training, but an innovator in practice. My career has been about building things: clinical training centers and programs, community partnerships, policy initiatives, and academic infrastructure.

I've always worked for organizations that were scrappy underdogs; where dollars were hard to find, staffing slim, and grit and resilience were keys to building and maintaining effective services and team cohesion. I've learned how to do more with less, and still produce substantive impact.

I’ve run clinical training programs in Chicago, Illinois and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I chair a rural behavioral health policy board in Nevada—appointed by a Democratic governor, reappointed by a Republican. I’ve served on a federal advisory committee, co-authoring reports to Congress as well as lobbied to Congress on behavioral health funding and initiatives. I’ve secured over $5 million in federal and private grants. I've helped universities create doctoral psychology programs and training placements. I’ve helped organizations and programs achieve accreditation, built community partnerships in disinvested neighborhoods, and led university divisions.

Through all of it, I’ve been the person others come to when they’re stuck. When they have a hard decision, a complex stakeholder situation, a program that won’t come together, a high-stakes ethical problem, funding innovation, or a policy landscape they can’t read. I help them think it through and move successfully forward.

Osten-Garner Advisory makes that official. It’s the work I’ve always done—now available to leaders who need a strategic thought partner, not a consultant with a slide deck.