Leadership

Ginger Ward is the founder and chief executive officer of Southwest Human Development. Founded in 1981 with a staff of only six serving 175 children and families, Southwest Human Development has grown to be Arizona’s largest nonprofit dedicated to early childhood development with more than 900 employees, serving 135,000 young children and their families each year.

Under Ginger’s direction, the agency has established a national reputation for leadership and high-quality services in the early childhood fields of education, mental health, family support, disabilities services, and training. Ginger has made a significant contribution to the early childhood field in Arizona by ensuring that the latest best practices and research are used to create programs and to educate parents, professionals, and policy makers about the importance of children’s earliest years to later development.

Ginger sits on a variety of boards and committees charged with forming policy on and improving services for children and families, including the Alliance for Early Learning Success; American Academy of Pediatrics, Arizona Chapter Board of Directors; Arizona Early Childhood Alliance; Child Care Advisory Committee-State of Arizona; Educare Arizona Board of Directors; Educare National Leadership Council; Healthy Families Steering Committee; Maricopa County Family Support Alliance; and the ZERO TO THREE National Board of Directors.

Jake Adams is the Chief Development Officer for Southwest Human Development where he oversees agency fundraising, community outreach, volunteer engagement, special events and marketing communications.

Jake has more than 15 years of experience in fundraising and business development in a variety of industries including politics, nonprofit, telecom, construction and renewable energy. Jake has also managed political campaigns, most recently for Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton.

Jake grew up in Pennsylvania before moving to Washington, D.C. in 2002, where he fundraised for U.S. Senate candidates from Delaware and Alaska. In 2005, a political campaign brought Jake to Arizona and he later worked in the construction industry as the lead salesman for his company’s renewable energy division. Jake then returned to politics in 2010.

Jake received an undergraduate degree in economics from West Chester University of Pennsylvania and completed an MBA at the University of Arizona.

He enjoys photography, fishing, woodworking and spending time with his family.

Doug Albrecht is a licensed clinical psychologist who serves as the clinical director for Southwest Human Development’s Good Fit Counseling Center. He provides treatment, assessment, consultation and supervision services for infants, toddlers and their families.

Doug received his training at the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, Calif. He has provided training to professionals and graduate students on the treatment of children who have experienced multiple forms of trauma, including physical and sexual abuse and domestic violence.

He has experience working with children in both California and Arizona who have been physically and sexually abused. Doug has additional expertise in infant/toddler mental health, parent-child relationships, play therapy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attachment and bonding.

Annette Findlay is the Chief Information Officer for Southwest Human Development. In this role, she leads all Information Technology development, support, operations and engineering functions for the agency.

With more than 30 years of experience, Annette has been an IT executive in several industries including banking, financial services, insurance, health care and residential construction. She has earned an AAS and BS degree from the University of Akron and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.

Annette was raised in a small town in northeastern Ohio and moved to Michigan early in her career. After taking a job that required her to commute to Phoenix, Annette decided to relocate to the Valley in 2008.

She is an avid Red Wings fan, plays tennis, volunteers with Halo Rescue, enjoys music and owns a classic British roadster.

Bill McClung is a seasoned veteran of the financial services industry. He began his career as a Certified Public Accountant working for one of the big-four national CPA firms. He then worked as vice president and controller for a subsidiary of an international finance company, subsequently serving as vice president, senior vice president and subsidiary president for several financial institutions, including a position where he was responsible for a staff of 700. Bill joined Southwest Human Development in 2008.

Bill is responsible for Southwest Human Development’s financial management functions, including overseeing agency and program budgets, general accounting, accounts receivable/payable, financial reporting, tax management and asset-liability management. He is also responsible for providing strategic leadership for the agency by working with the executive management team and Finance Committee.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Quantitative Methods from the University of Oregon.

Dr. Trudi Murch is director of Services for Children with Disabilities at Southwest Human Development, a community-based human service agency in the Greater Phoenix area. Department programs include: Head Start disabilities services, Children’s Developmental Center (Early Intervention), Early Care and Education Inclusion Program, Nurse-Family Partnership, Newborn Intensive Care Program, Smooth Way Home, Feeding Services and Assistive Technology Training and Resource Center.

Trudi has had extensive experience in designing and delivering training programs to Head Start personnel, school district teams and early intervention programs in the areas of inclusion, early intervention program design, and reflective supervision. She recently co-authored a text: Reflective Supervision and Leadership in Infant and Early Childhood Programs, published by the ZERO TO THREE Press. She and her colleague, Mary Claire Heffron have produced a set of video vignettes, along with a training manual, entitled: Finding the Words, Finding the Ways: Exploring Reflective Supervision and Facilitation.

Trudi has been at Southwest Human Development for more than 25 years. Prior to joining the agency, she was a practicing speech-language pathologist at Good Samaritan Hospital/Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston. She received her Ph.D. in speech-language pathology from the University of Pittsburgh.

Janet Otte brings more than 30 years of corporate and nonprofit leadership experience in human resources to Southwest Human Development. Her areas of expertise include management training, employee relations, employee benefits, policy and procedures and reorganization. Janet is a member of the Society of Human Resources Management.

Janet has been an integral part of the Southwest Human Development senior management team as the organization has grown from 200 to more than 850 employees since her arrival in 1997. She is responsible for all employment-related activities, benefits administration, employee-management relations, licensure and accreditation compliance, records management, legal compliance issues and facilities.

Suzanne M. Schunk has been the vice president of Family Support Services at Southwest Human Development since 2000. Under her leadership, the department has tripled in size as the number of programs has increased significantly. Most of the programs address child welfare prevention or intervention and the department and agency are highly respected and known for excellent services and outstanding outcomes for children and families. The specialized program developed by Suzanne for families with a parent accused of medical child abuse (“Munchausen by Proxy”) has achieved national recognition.

Prior to coming to Southwest Human Development, Suzanne was the CEO of Family Services Agency in Elkton, Md. for 14 years. An Arizona Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Suzanne has nearly 40 years of experience providing mental health and child welfare services to children and families and she has been an expert witness for courts in several states, including Arizona. She was a clinical consultant for several programs in Maryland and now completes specialized clinical assessments for the AZ Department of Child Safety. Her areas of expertise include child welfare and child medical abuse, Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another, domestic violence, professional court-ready documentation, and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.

Suzanne has provided professional training for more than 25 years and has presented at many state-wide conferences, as well as the national conferences for the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and the National Association of Social Workers.

Suzanne earned her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University in Bronx, N.Y. and her master’s degree in Social Work from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. In 2006, she earned the “Infant Family Specialist Certificate” from the Harris Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Training Institute. She has been also a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional since 2016. She has personal experience as a foster parent and as an adoptive parent and grandparent.

Suzanne is actively involved in the National Association of Social Workers – Arizona Chapter (NASW-AZ) where she is a past president of the Board of Directors. Suzanne represents Southwest Human Development on the Child Welfare Committee of Children’s Action Alliance, the Healthy Families AZ Advisory Committee, and she is a past treasurer for the Protecting Arizona’s Family Coalition Board of Directors. She is active in advocacy on legislative issues affecting programs for children and families.

Suzanne received numerous awards during her work in Maryland. Since coming to Arizona, Suzanne was honored on 2005 as the “Social Worker of the Year” for NASW-AZ. In 2014, she received the “Hope Award” from Prevent Child Abuse Arizona and the “President’s Award” from NASW-AZ.

Alison Steier is a licensed psychologist who serves as director of the Harris Institute at Southwest Human Development, the Birth to Five Helpline and its Fussy Baby service, and Arizona’s system of early childhood mental health consultation, known as Smart Support.

Alison earned her doctoral degree from George Mason University. She received advanced training in psychotherapy from Georgetown University, completed a pre-doctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital and was a visiting fellow at Boston’s Children’s Hospital. She holds a fellowship in infant mental health from Louisiana State University Medical Center and a postdoctorate in infant mental health from Tulane University Medical Center. She has been the lucky beneficiary of training with some of the country’s most prominent experts in mental health and early childhood, including T. Berry Brazelton, Charles Zeanah, and Joy Osofsky.

Alison is a frequent presenter on topics related to infant mental health and has published in the areas of mental health consultation and young children’s attachments to special inanimate objects (“transitional objects”).

Alan Taylor has been with Southwest Human Development for more than 25 years. His areas of experience and expertise include design, delivery and evaluation of training programs for a wide range of adult learners, early childhood leadership development, program design, administration and supervision.

Alan has been responsible for contracts with numerous multi-state and regional training programs designed to deliver training and technical assistance to Head Start and early education programs throughout the western United States. Other programs within his department include services that support young children’s early language and literacy development, provide a wide range of training and technical expertise to child care programs, and support for Quality First, Arizona’s Quality Improvement and Rating System.

Alan has a long-term commitment to helping parents learn the importance of reading to their children. He recognizes the critical importance of building leadership skills in the nonprofit sector in general, and early care and education in particular. Alan works with the American Express Leadership Academy and, as a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Alan was actively involved in a systems change project in Eastern and Central Europe that assisted in the redesign of early childhood education systems.

Mindy Zapata has worked for Head Start and in the early childhood education field for more than 30 years. From holding leadership positions to providing direct services to children and families, Mindy’s vast range of experiences have provided her with valuable insight into translating regulations and applying them to real-life applications.

Mindy has directed both Head Start and Early Head Start programs. As director of Head Start, Mindy’s vision led to the opening of the first Early Head Start program located in a juvenile detention facility. This program received national recognition and has been the model for similar programs throughout the United States.

Mindy is a member of the Head Start Association Board of Directors and is an adjunct faculty for Maricopa County Community College District in the areas of early childhood development and family studies. Mindy is a certified Head Start program monitoring reviewer and regional Head Start grant application reviewer.