Board of Directors

USF Health Professions Conferencing Corporation

Board of Directors

Jeff Sparling
Chairperson
Partner, Ernst & Young

View Bio
Jeff Sparling started his career with EY in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in August 1986. In June 1988, Sparling transferred to the Tampa office. In September 1996, he relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, where he served as a member of EY’s national office. While with the national office, he was involved in developing firm policies, addressing technical issues and overseeing certain EY education courses. Sparling resumed his client-serving role in the Tampa office in June 1998. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Western Michigan University and is a Certified Public Accountant in Florida, Michigan, New York and Tennessee. He oversees also EY’s recruiting efforts at the University of South Florida.

Santiago Corrada
President and Chief Executive Officer Visit Tampa Bay

View Bio
Santiago C. Corrada officially began his position as President and Chief Executive Officer for Visit Tampa Bay in May of 2013 where he is responsible for providing oversight of all agency activities. He serves as main spokesperson for the tourism and hospitality industry. Mr. Corrada coordinates effective marketing and sales strategies ensuring maximum return on investment. With more than 20 years of public service and management experience, Mr. Corrada previously served as Chief of Staff for the City of Tampa. Additionally, during the Iorio administration, he served as Convention Center, Tourism, Recreation and Cultural Arts Administrator directly overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Tampa Convention Center. Prior to joining the City of Tampa in 2004 as Neighborhood Services Administrator, he served as the Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Miami.

His current Board Affiliations include The Florida Aquarium-Board and Executive Committee, Hillsborough County Hotel Motel Association-Board and Executive Committee, Outback Bowl, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Tampa Bay History Center, Tampa Bay Hospitality Alliance Board, Tampa Bay Sports Commission, Tampa Hillsborough Film and Digital Media Commission, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa Theatre, Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo-Board and Executive Committee. He graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor Degree in Psychology and Exceptional Student Education as well as a Master in Education.

Charles J. Lockwood, M.D., MHCM
Senior Vice President, USF Health
Dean, USF Morsani College of Medicine
USF President Designee

View Bio
At USF Health, Dr. Lockwood leads the Morsani College of Medicine and the Colleges of Nursing, Public Health and Pharmacy; and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. He also oversees the faculty group practice of the medical school – with more than 1,000 providers, it is one of the largest multispecialty group practices in Florida. Dr. Lockwood is also a professor in the medical school’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and holds a secondary appointment as a professor in the USF Health College of Public Health. He assumed all these leadership roles when he joined USF Health in May 2014, and has also served as an Executive Vice President at Tampa General Hospital since 2015.

Dr. Lockwood has received multiple research grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the March of Dimes and other foundations. He has chaired and/or served on multiple committees of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, NIH, and the Food and Drug Administration. He serves on the national board of the March of Dimes Foundation, is president of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, and a past president of the Society for Reproductive Investigation, the largest international reproductive science organization. He has been a tireless advocate for the training of physician-scientists.

Dr. Lockwood is a prolific writer, having authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications (Google H-index of 80; 21,590 citations), 280 editorials, textbook chapters and reviews, authored or co-authored three books and co-edited seven major textbooks, three with multiple editions). He is obstetrics section editor for UpToDate, and the long-standing Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary OB/GYN, where his editorials won five national publication awards.

He has been elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine). He is a recipient of the Pardi President’s Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Reproductive Investigation, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the NICHD Frontiers in Reproduction Beacon Award.

Harold “Hal” W. Mullis
President Emeritus, Trenam Law

View Bio
Harold “Hal” Mullis is a founding member of the firm and currently serves as its president. He also has served as a member of the firm’s three person management committee. Hal is a member of the Corporate Transactions Practice Group and his practice areas include general corporate representation, mergers and acquisitions, tax controversies, tax exempt and charitable organizations.

 

Linda Olson
President/CEO, Tampa Bay Wave

View Bio
Linda Olson is the CEO & founder of Tampa Bay Wave. To date, Linda has raised over $6 million in federal and local funds to launch and expand Tampa Bay Wave including a total of six federal grants. Linda has been a founder or management team member of several tech startups since 1999, including Yet2.com. Prior to that, Linda began her career running ERP implementation projects for Fortune 500 companies.

Linda is an original member of Startup America Partnership and is currently an active member of Startup Champions Network. Linda also serves as an Honorary Commander at MacDill Air Force Base and serves on the advisory boards at Synapse Florida, Centre for Women, and Visit Tampa Bay. In 2019, Linda was selected to the U.S. delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain.

Linda has a CPA license from the State of Florida (currently inactive), Masters and BS degrees from Florida State University, and an MBA from Columbia University. A native of St. Pete Beach, Linda enjoys spending time with her family, including her two daughters whom she is raising to be future female entrepreneurs in Tampa Bay.

Charles N. Pozner, MD
Former Executive Director, Neil and Elise Wallace STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School

View Bio
Charles N. PonzerDr. Pozner is an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He graduated from Tufts School of Medicine and completed residencies in internal medicine at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital/Harvard Medical School and in emergency medicine at UCLA/Olive View.

Dr. Pozner was the co-founder and founding medical director of the Neil and Elise Wallace STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Under his leadership, the center has grown from a center exclusively for emergency medicine to serving the entire academic medical center. Skills training and content education is provided to a wide variety of clinicians at all levels. There is a particular emphasis on interprofessional team training. Simulation is also used for quality initiatives at the hospital.

Dr. Pozner’s research interests are in non-technical skills and team training and his primary clinical interest is in resuscitation. He has been an invited speaker nationally and internationally and has been a consultant on simulation projects across the globe. He is the chairperson of the Strategic Relations subcommittee of the Society of Simulation in Healthcare. In 2016, Dr. Pozner received the Bernard Lown Teaching Award, an award to celebrate physicians who are outstanding clinical leaders and recognize the significant role that education plays in the missions of both Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Lynda Remund
President/CEO, Tampa Downtown Partnership

View Bio
Serving as President and CEO for the Tampa Downtown Partnership, Lynda leads the longest operating Business Improvement District in the State of Florida and serves and supports the hundreds of business members for their 34-year-old organization.

During her twenty-one years tenure with the Partnership, she has served in many roles, becoming President and CEO in 2019 after a one-year appointment as Interim President and CEO.  She leads the organizational structure, management, vision and mission, and fiscal responsibility of the Partnership, as well as establishing and executing programmatic and strategic initiatives for the growth of Tampa’s Downtown.

As former Chief Operating Officer, and Director of District Operations, her responsibilities have included the development and management of clean and safe operations, beautification and public art initiatives, membership, and events. The most impactful work she guided during this time was setting the strategic direction and management of the Downtown Special Services District (SSD) through an annual contract with the City of Tampa, including facilitating the special assessment budget.

Since appointed President & CEO, Lynda led the expansion of the SSD boundaries for the first time since 1994, implemented a 2023 Vision Plan with four strategic initiatives to support the transformation of Tampa’s Downtown into a live-work-play-learn community.

Jim Shimberg
Executive Vice President & General Counsel
Strategic Property Partners LLC

View Bio
Jim Shimberg is the Executive Vice President of Strategic Property Partners LLC, the developer of the Water Street Tampa project. Shimberg has been with SPP since its inception in 2013. Shimberg also serves as the General Counsel of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Prior to joining SPP, Shimberg was the City Attorney for the City of Tampa from 2011 to 2013. Before that, he was a partner with the Holland & Knight law firm. Shimberg is a former Chair of the Tampa Downtown Partnership and is the current Board President of the Tampa Hillsborough Homeless Initiative. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and the University of Florida College of Law.

Mark H. Taylor, PhD CPA
Director, Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy
Muma College of Business, University of South Florida
President Elect, American Accounting Association

View Bio
Mark Taylor is the director of the Lynn Pippenger School of Accountancy. He began his duties over the summer of 2019, coming from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. There, Taylor was the department chair and accounting professor.

He had been with Case Western Reserve University since 2009 and was the Andrew D. Braden Professor of Accounting and Auditing, teaching courses in corporate governance and auditing assurance areas. He is the past president of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association and he also has served on the Auditing Section Executive Committee.

For three years, he was on the Senior Technical Committee of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Auditing Standards Board. He also is the audit committee chair and independent trustee on three investment company trusts and has had research sponsored by the Center for Audit Quality twice in the past three years.

Taylor earned a doctorate from the Eller School of Business at the University of Arizona and a master’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management.

 

Officers

Dr. Haru Okuda
Chief Executive Officer, USF Health Professions Conferencing Corporation

Leigh Ann Drexler
Secretary/Treasurer, USF Health Professions Conferencing Corporation
Assistant Vice President, Business and Finance, USF Health
Controller, USF Morsani College of Medicine
Interim Chief Financial Officer, USF Health

Greg Vannette
Chief Financial Officer, USF Health Professions Conferencing Corporation

Staff Representatives

Robert Pelaia
Deputy General Counsel, USF Office of General Counsel

Alexandra Roberson
Sr. Administrative Support