ACT LEADERS

Jenee Sisnroy, TBEI Program Manager

Leo Huppert, General Manager

Leo Huppert earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree at the University of New Mexico in 1987. He began his career working as civilian in Logistics Management for the Department of the Air Force. When Williams Air Force Base closed in 1993, he moved into Aviation Management at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport eventually working as the Director of Development for the Airport Authority.

In 2001, Leo and his wife Becky, started Huppert Pediatric Therapy Inc. In 2006, he worked with four other small therapy companies to establish Arizona Cooperative Therapies.

Leo has served in a number of capacities within the Cooperative; in addition to Huppert Pediatric Therapy staffing ACT's early intervention teams, he also currently serves as ACT's General Manager. His interests outside of work include hiking, snow skiing and reading.

Don Gier, Business Administrator

Don Gier graduated with his B.S. degree in Economics from the University of Maryland in 1986. Don spent 19 mid-level management years in the Semi-Conductor industry, most of those 19 years were spent in Maryland and California before settling in Scottsdale Arizona.

Don currently co-owns and operates Sunshine Speech-Language Therapy Services, which was established in 2001 to provide pediatric speech therapy services in the natural home environment. Sunshine Speech has been an active member of Arizona Cooperative Therapies since 2006.

Don has been actively involved with Arizona Cooperative Therapies since 2013 with a focus on finance and daily operations.

Kristin Gier, Board President

Kristin completed her MA in Speech Pathology in 1997 from San Jose State University after completion of a BA in Speech and Hearing Sciences from The University of Arizona in 1994. She has been working with children of all ages in schools and homes for 24 years, providing home-based therapy services privately and through Arizona programs for the last 17 years. Founding Sunshine Speech-Language Therapy Services in 2001, Kristin managed Speech and Occupational therapists in subcontract, school-based, clinic-based and home-based settings, while maintaining an individual caseload. In 2006 when they began a family, her husband, Don left Corporate America to run the agency together. They continue to work side by side daily to dedicate themselves to their family and the agency. From 2008-2012, Kristin served as a TBEI core team member full-time, leading a team of Speech Pathologists to provide services for the Northeast Region during the AzEIP pilot of TBEI. She has always believed in supervising Bachelor level clinicians in route to higher education accomplishments. Kristin has had direct experience with the Early Intervention Program in AZ since 2008. As a clinician, she specializes in birth to five year old children with communication delays, phonological processing disorders and secondary sensory processing disorders. Sunshine joined Arizona Cooperative Therapies in 2006 and has been an active part of its development and implementation ever since. She served on the Board of Directors from 9/2012- 8/2015, serving first as Vice President, then as President, and finally as Immediate Past President, consecutively. Her agency currently staffs all disciplines of core teams, except PT, across all 9 regions ACT carries contracts for. Kristin is proud of what ACT has accomplished to date, and looks forward to further opportunities to grow personally and professionally side by side with ACT and its members. She is pleased to serve as a member of the ACT Board of Directors again to help support continued accomplishment and prosperity to all of its staff and members.

Alicia Quintana, Board Vice President

Amber Neubauer, Board Secretary

Susan Becerra, Team Conference Coordinator

Susan discovered her passion for working with families and their young children as a parent volunteer in a Head Start classroom 28 years ago.

She studied Early Childhood Education at Central Arizona College. For most of the last 25 years, Susan has worked in Head Start, Early Head Start, Healthy Families and the Arizona Early Intervention Program. Her experience includes program coordination, service coordination and direct service provision in an early intervention program serving medically fragile children. Susan joined ACT in September 2018 and is excited to begin her new journey as the Team Conference Coordinator for Regions 3, 6, and 9.