Our Team

Gary D. Alexander

Gary D. Alexander is the founder, president and CEO of the Alexander Group, a government and private-sector consulting firm that creates and delivers cutting-edge data driven solutions, strategic business-development and innovative-technology platforms, to improve efficiency, effectiveness and quality. He is a nationally recognized health-care and Medicaid expert, welfare reformer, and budget specialist. For over 15 years, he has transformed underperforming state health and welfare agencies into accountable, value-oriented and data and performance-driven systems by pioneering structural reforms and state-of-the-art technology solutions that have improved outcomes and quality, lowered health-care costs, reduced fraud and waste, re-engineered employment programs, modernized access, and eliminated budget deficits. A pragmatic and decisive leader, Alexander has a track record not only of identifying problems but also assembling the right mix of talent, policy makers, and stakeholders to generate data-driven solutions with quantifiable results to some of the most vexing challenges facing federal, state and local governments. By restructuring large and often unaccountable public agencies, according to performance-based teams that produce measurable outcomes, he has earned a reputation for leadership excellence.

Dr. Robert Alexander

Robert G. Alexander, M.D., MPH is an adviser and has forged a 30 year career in medicine and medical policy issues.  As an Assistant Undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare (the precursor organization to HHS), Dr. Alexander was active in medical policy making and legislative initiatives. He left Washington to forge a career in medical practice.  While primarily dedicated to the well-being and health of his patients, he continued to work with national medical associations to educate lawmakers on the issues facing the healthcare system today.

Dr. Alexander earned a Master of Public Health from Yale University, and Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Medicine degrees at Boston University. He performed an Ophthalmic Residency at the Kresge Eye Institute at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, and the University of West Virginia, Morgantown.

Murray Blitzer

Murray Blitzer is a member of The Alexander Group’s Team with over 30 years of experience in public administration and finance with a specialty in Medicaid and human services. Most recently, he began advising individuals and families on how to maximize their available retirement resources. He was the Chief Financial Officer of the Rhode Island Department of Human Services, overseeing a $1.5 billion budget and over 1000 employees. He also served in the Rhode Island Legislature as Deputy to the Senate Fiscal Officer. In the Senate, as an advisor to the Majority Leader, he implemented a budget hearing and review process that allowed the membership equal participation in formulating policy.

Murray began his career in the Rhode Island State Budget Office where he designed and implemented the structure for the state’s Consensus Medical Assistance and Caseload Estimating Conference, applying professional forecasting tools to over $2 billion in health Care and Welfare spending.

Chris Der Vartanian

Chris Der Vartanian is a senior audit expert with The Alexander Group. Previously, Mr. Der Vartanian was employed by the State of Rhode Island for nearly 21 years, most recently as the Chief Auditor for the State of Rhode Island Bureau of Audits where lead that office for 8 years and where he was responsible for the internal audit oversight of over 150 state department, agencies, quasi-agencies, and programs. In addition to Chief Auditor, Mr. Der Vartanian served the State of Rhode Island as the Supervisor of Examinations in the Division of Banking and as an Examiner-In-Charge in the State Insurance Division. He has also worked for GTECH Corporation in Providence, Rhode Island, Ernst & Whinney (now Ernst & Young) in its Providence office, American Bankers Insurance Group of Miami, Florida and Price Waterhouse (now PwC) in its Miami, Florida office.

Kevin K. Gabriel, MBA, FSA, MAAA

Kevin K. Gabriel is a Senior Associate with the Alexander Group. He has worked in the healthcare and employee benefits areas for over 20 years. He began his career with a national writer of Group Health Insurance and later moved to a pair of major reinsurers in the Health arena. In his last position before becoming a consultant, Kevin ran the Accident and Health Reinsurance division for a major A rated Life Insurer.

Kevin’s worked has included the pricing of a wide range of medical products, the evaluation of managed care networks and managed care intervention programs, and the assessment of liabilities for insurers and employers.

Tania A. Alexander, MS, OTR/L, PTA

Tania A. Alexander is an Occupational Therapist and also a certified physical therapy assistant with over 17 years of experience in the therapy field. Ms. Alexander possesses the full spectrum of practice settings and all ages from pre-school to geriatric level. In her role as a school based therapist, she has developed individually designed programs for children with developmental disabilities, Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Sensory Processing Disorder, Dyspraxia, and fine motor and visual perceptual motor delays.
When developing individualized programs, Ms. Alexander utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach and works closely with teachers, special educators, psychologists, speech therapists, and other specialists to provide meaningful therapy that provides her students with optimal access to the curriculum.

Sharon D’Antuono, MS,CCC-SLP

Sharon D’Antuono, a licensed Speech Language Pathologist, brings over ten years experience working as a Speech Pathologist in the public schools and fourteen years of grant writing experience to her current role as the co-chair of the Alexander Group’s Therapy and Special Education Practice and as Lead Grant Writer. In her role as a school clinician, Sharon has developed individually designed programs for children with developmental disabilities, Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Apraxia, Articulation Disorders, Phonological Processing Disorder, Fluency Disorders, and Receptive/Expressive Language Delays.

Joanne Mortimer PT

Joanne Mortimer is an experienced Physical Therapist with over 30 years of clinical practice. Her specialization is Pediatrics and for the past 22 years she has practiced, as a member of the interdisciplinary educational team, as a school physical therapist. Joanne supports the education of students with disabilities and serious health impairments by providing therapy and incorporating practice into the least restrictive environment, as physical therapy is subject to the same least restrictive environment mandate and philosophy as is special education.

George Z. Marootian

George is a Senior Associate with the Alexander Group and is an advisor on Information Technology. George has over 25 years experience in the definition, development and deployment of software and hardware technology solutions for Fortune 500 companies and several startups.

His software skills cover Java, Python and LAMP stack for the application service layer. For data persistence, George has worked with relational databases (Oracle, mySQL, SQL Server), and has, over the past few years, been involved in the deployment of Hadoop and MongoDB deployments for BIG Data initiatives.

Mark Treat

Mr. Treat comes to the Alexander Group by way of Nalari Health where he is the President and CEO. Nalari is a full service remote health company that delivers a first-class health care experience that connects the very best people, processes and technology available – for every patient, wherever and whenever he or she needs treatment. Mark heads up the Alexander Group’s remote health practice. Prior to his work at Nalari Mark spent time at SAIC, an $11B, 45,000-person science, technology and professional service organization where he led the inception, sales and development of a new business practice, including the successful negotiation of over $100M in new contracts. Prior to working at SAIC, Mr. Treat led the strategy and planning practice for Commerce One, a leading internet services and online marketplace company.

Louis P. Paolino

Louis P. Paolino is a senior consultant specialist in Long Term Care with the Alexander Group. Lou assists in directing AG’s strong focus on improving quality across the long term care continuum.  Lou also serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Lifetime Medical, a role he assumed in 1979 when he founded the company.  As a leader in senior and disability care, Lifetime Medical is committed to providing cutting edge and safe care and services that proactively meet the expanding needs and expectations of the senior and disability healthcare population.

Earl Baker, Ph. D.

Earl Baker is a Senior Associate at the Alexander Group and a long-term care and government affairs specialist. He is a well-known and highly respected leader in public affairs, management, and advocacy.

In his public service career, Earl Baker was elected 16 times, never losing an election. From his longtime home town of Malvern Borough in Chester County he was successfully elected as Borough Committeeman, County Commissioner for three terms, and State Senator for two terms. He also served as Republican State Chairman of Pennsylvania for four years, and was a Member of the National Committee. He was elected as a Delegate to three National Conventions and was a Presidential Elector in the Electoral College in 1988.