Mary Powell, Executive Director – Ms. Powell became Executive Director in February 2018, having served many years in non-profit executive leadership positions at the Governor’s Institute on Alcohol and Substance Abuse and the Alcohol Drug Council of North Carolina.  She has a master’s degree in health administration from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree from Bates College.   Prior to coming to IMR, Ms. Powell had implemented a variety of educational and community-based initiatives, working with North Carolina’s four medical schools, several nursing schools and a variety of university allied health programs.   She also served as a financial manager for numerous contracts and grants, both federally and privately funded.  IMR, she is responsible for oversight for all operations, as well as strategic communications with the Board, Principal Investigators and other partners.  Ms. Powell also provides a key role in fiscal operations to ensure that internal controls are implemented and provides grants management assistance.  The work of IMR has allowed Mary to bring her passion for science-based health care quality-improvement and education to serve veterans. 

Laura Horton, Human Resources Director – Ms. Horton joined the organization February 2013, as the Accounts Receivable/Payroll Administrator and added HR to these responsibilities in September 2014. Ms. Horton has a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Central University in English and over 5 years in Human Resources management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She is well-versed in HR regulations and a talented personnel manager.  She has played a significant role in HR compliance for the organization’s WOC Affiliates. In January 2019, Ms. Horton has been able to increase her expert HR support to PIs in the hiring process as a strategy to decrease employee turnover and improve programmatic productivity.     

Kathy McCauley is the Contracts and Grants Administrator and works directly with PIs and their research sponsors and other funders to prepare documents for all CRADAs, CDAs, and other contracts.  She came to IMR with administrative and finance experience in the pharmaceutical industry (GlaxoSmithKline) as well as several years in a law firm.  Ms. McCauley is the lead contact with the VA STAR attorney, as well as the initial organizational contact with industry.  She coordinates the budget negotiations between the PIs or their staff and sponsors.  On the federal side, she assists PIs with their document preparation and in accessing the electronic submission sites (ie. SAM, Grants.gov, ebrap and the NASA Inspires system).  She also maintains the program consulting contracts, the current CRADA listings, CRADA registry and the Pending Project List.  Kathy joined the staff of IMR in 2014.  She is very efficient, an excellent writer and manages the wide range of tasks smoothly.

David Mendel, Finance Manager – Mr. Mendel joined the organization in January 2020 as the Finance Manager. He comes to IMR with a distinguished background in senior level finance positions in education and research. Additionally, he has served in leadership roles in both public and private education. Prior to his accounting and finance experience, Mr. Mendel served honorably for many years with the US Army. His education includes an undergraduate degree in business from Sam Houston State University, a Master of Business Administration from Our Lady of the Lake University and post-graduate studies at Harvard University in business analytics. Mr. Mendel has been acknowledged by several honor societies and private companies for his exceptional performance.

Faye Silver, Office Manager / Payroll Specialist – Ms. Silver joined the organization in August 2017 as the Accounts Payable Administrative Assistant.  She had a background in small business bookkeeping and has a degree in Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh.  Her position began evolving in Spring 2018.   She took over the processing of payroll in addition to purchasing supplies and paying expenses.   As operations continued to grow, Ms. Silver began to serve as the lead point of contact of current operations. In July 2019, the title of Office Manager was added to her title.  Ms. Silver should be considered is the primary contact “first call” for all IMR purchasing and other fiscal operations issues.