Team

Although Candace Groudine specialized in discrimination law while a student at Georgetown University Law Center, after her nephew, Bart, suffered a severe TBI, she became increasingly interested in focusing on disability law. She is a retired senior civil rights officer with the federal government and taught constitutional law-related subjects as an adjunct senior lecturer at UMBC for a number of years. She is now an adjunct professor at Montgomery College’s Lifelong Learning Institute in Maryland. She is a Commissioner on Montgomery County’s Human Rights Commission and an ex-officio Commissioner on the County’s Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Candace’s publications and presentations in the area of disability include but are not limited to the following topics: the relationship between equitable development and how embracing accessibility results in significant sustainability gains; ADA/Section 504 essentials for state civil rights specialists; potential concerns about ADA/Section 504 in a Post-COVID-19 legal world; and federal enforcement of ADA regulations. She is the recipient of two “Administrator’s Awards” while working at the Federal Highway Administration for “outstanding leadership in advancing the Americans with Disabilities Act and Environmental Justice as integral parts of the civil rights discipline.”

Candace was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, but has been a resident of Maryland for more than 25 years. She earned a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and is licensed to practice law in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Her PhD is in educational administration and policy studies from SUNY Albany, her MA in Philosophy from Columbia University, and her BA in Philosophy from Brooklyn College (CUNY). When Candace was 65 years old, she and her life partner summitted Mount Kilimanjaro and they continue to pursue their love of hiking and travel. Candace joined the BART Foundation’s Board of Trustees shortly after the Foundation was established. In the wake of her nephew Bart’s severe TBI, she became a passionate advocate of safe alternatives for TBI and other brain injuries. She has a special interest in shedding light on underserved populations of TBI survivors – victims of partner abuse, homeless individuals, prison inmates, and female athletes.

When Cassidy was only eleven, her adoring older brother Bart suffered a severe TBI in an auto accident. The arc of her life was forever changed. Many challenging years for the family followed, and she eventually became a founding board member of the BART Foundation.

She earned a BS from Siena College, majoring in Management and minoring in French, including a semester of study abroad in Lyons France. She was involved in SIFE, Habitat for Humanity, and intermural softball and soccer. She attended for many years Camp Mujigae, Americas largest Korean culture camp for adoptees, as a camper and eventually a senior counselor.

Beginning in high school as a busser in a fine restaurant, she has gone on to a distinguished career in hospitality, working for Marriott and other smaller boutique hotels, as a supervisor, manager, and director, including most notably on the Opening Team of Perry Lane Hotel (Savannah) declared one of the Best New Hotels in the World 2019 by Conde Nast Traveler, one of the best hotels (Top 25) in the U.S. for TripAdvisor, and the 2019 Travel & Leisure’s “It List” of the Best New Hotels in the World. She has traveled widely in the United States and Europe. She currently does recruitment for Hilton Hotels.

Cassidy resides in Orlando Fl with her husband Miguel and their son Alexander.

Mother of a TBI survivor, Dayle is a founding member of the BART Foundation.

With husband Joel she adopted two Korean children, Bart and Cassidy. She earned her BS in Psychology from Mercy College, then went on to become a Reiki Master, practicing for decades. She volunteered at Camp Mujigae for many years, including Coordinator of Volunteers.

After her son Bart suffered a severe TBI as an adolescent, she became an ardent advocate of safe alternative therapies, which drove his recovery beyond expectations. She was a founding board member of the BART Foundation, and remained a devoted caregiver until Bart passed away 21 years post-injury.

Married for 50 years, she enjoys being a grandmother, as well as travel, walking, hiking, playing Mahjong, and learning to speak Greek. She is owner of an adoring therapy dog Nico, is a Jane Austin fan, and enjoys Louise Penny’s mysteries.

A distinguished board-certified pediatrician, Dr. Sussman has served as an officer or board member of a wide range of medical, educational, and social services organizations in Maryland. In 2009 he was honored as the Pediatrician of the Year by the Montgomery Prince Georges Pediatric Society. He became personally involved in brain injury when in 2012 his youngest child suffered TBI in an industrial accident. Learning of the Goldstein family’s experiences through Joel’s writings and videos, he began a very productive exploration of alternative therapies, joining the BART Foundation as a founding member of its board in 2016. He retired from practice in 2020, but has kept up an active research interest in TBI/ABI.

From 2006 to the present, he served on the Board of Directors and Emeritus Board of the Children’s National Medical Center, served for several years as Chairman Department of Pediatrics Shady Grove Adventist Hospital and Chairman of Holy Cross Hospital Dept. of Pediatrics. He is a member or fellow of The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Board of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, The Montgomery County Medical Society, Montgomery Prince Georges Medical Society, and was many years member of The District of Columbia Allergy Society.

Sussman earned his BS from Fairleigh Dickenson University, and MD from Howard University College of Medicine. He did his residency at Walter Reed Medical Center in both Pediatrics and Allergy and Immunology, going on to serve four years in the US Army as an Emergency Room General Medical Officer and Pediatrician, assigned to Korea and then Fort Meade Maryland.

His wife Tammy is The Felt Board Lady- creative and innovative digital felt stories, live storytelling, , creative endeavors, doll tea parties, and demonstrations of making felt characters, for ages 2 to 8. Dr. Sussman and Tammy have three children and four grandchildren.

Dr. Compain, a board-certified Internist, practiced integrative and functional medicine for over thirty years before retiring. With aspecial interest in Environmental Medicine he was a member of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine for many years. He also worked extensively with children withneurobehavioral disorders, in particular Autism Spectrum Disorders. He has always been a creative thinker dedicated to exploring safe alternative therapies for brain injuries, neurological disorders and other intractable conditions.

It was Dr. Compain who originally suggested to the Goldstein’s that they try HBOT to treat their son Bart’s severe TBI. He had a longstanding interest in HBOT, having employed it and other safe alternatives in his practice to treat patients with advanced Lyme Disease. HBOT was life-changing for Bart. The Goldstein’s subsequent pivot towards alternative therapies led years later to the creation of the BART Foundation. Compain was a founding member of its board.
He is a founding member of Cantine’s Island Cohousing in Saugerties, NY where he has raised a family, now living there with his wife of forty-five years. With an interest in liberal education, he formerly served as President of the Mountain Laurel Waldorf School in New Paltz. Active in progressive politics, Dr. Compain was for many years on the state board of Citizen Action of New York.

Compain earned his BA from Columbia University and his MD from New York University, doing postgraduate training at University of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital and Albert Einstein’s Montefiore Hospital Center. He contributed a chapter in Food and Nutrition in Disease Management (CRC Press) and has written four novels, one of them published, along with several published short stories. He plays the French Horn in a local band, enjoys biking and kayaking.

By tragic necessity Joel Goldstein became a lay authority in traumatic brain injury (TBI) after his teenage son Bart suffered severe TBI in an auto accident in 2001. His critically acclaimed book, No Stone Unturned: A Father’s Memoir of His Son’s Encounter with Traumatic Brain Injury, (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2012), with a foreword by Lee Woodruff, is a standard reference work found in university libraries worldwide. Joel has written about acquired brain injury (ABI) for Brainline.org., Exceptional Parent Magazine, Adoption Today, Caregiver Space, and Rehab & Community Care Medicine and Korean American Story. He has spoken on NPR, public television and to audiences ranging from Medical Societies and Brain Injury Associations to the NYS Assembly.

An adoption advocate and activist, he served for years on the international adoption board of Albany’s Parsons Child & Family Center and of Camp Mujigae, the largest Korean heritage camp in the country, where he did a stint as Camp Director. Founding President of the Southern Ulster Branch YMCA, Joel served on its board as well as the board of The YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County. Educated in NYC public schools, he earned a BA at Brooklyn College and MA at the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Research of The New School, going on to teach philosophy and logic for a couple of years at Mercy College, Westchester, New York. He went on to a distinguished career in transportation and logistics. Formerly an avid mountain climber and martial artist, nowadays Joel prefers hiking, writing and travel.

In 2016, along with several distinguished physicians and others, Goldstein formed the Brain Alternative Rehabilitation Therapies Foundation (BART Foundation), a 501(c)(3) public charity, to explore and promote use of safe alternative therapies for brain injuries.

Perry M. Perretz, D.O., first became interested in alternative health care as an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where he had an epiphany. A friend badly injured her ankle and was a candidate for knee and ankle surgery. By chance before the orthopedists could start cutting, she found an acupuncturist who successfully treated her injury without surgery, and even addressed some of the psychological roots of her condition. Seemed to Perretz that acupuncture was more comprehensive than anything we understand in western medicine because it does not separate mind and body. He figured “If there is a course of study that allows me to understand those mind-body relationships, I want to learn that.”

Perry enrolled in the program at the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in 1984, and began his career as an acupuncturist in 1987. After eight years of practice in eastern medicine, he saw that many patients were falling through the cracks in our health care system.
Inspired to serve people better as part of the medical establishment, he graduated from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1999, and completed his residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Chicago in 2003. This was his introduction to treating brain injury. While a resident, he made attempts to include alternative treatments like HBOT and pulsed-frequency laser for his hospitalized patients, but he found the hospital administration was too intransigent to accept his proposals.

His private practice, called Advanced Pain Solutions, in Redding, Connecticut is dedicated to the treatment of musculoskeletal pain, featuring an eclectic mix of osteopathy, prolotherapy, acupuncture, and neural therapy.

Dr. Perretz has been a featured presenter for conferences of the New England Academy of Osteopathy, the Maine Association of Family Practice, the Eastern Athletic Trainers Association, the American Osteopathic College of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, The North American Academy of Neural Therapy, and the Columbian Association of Neural Therapy, (ACOLTN).

He has lectured at the University of Bridgeport College of Nauropathic Medicine, Western Connecticut State University, Naugatuck Community College, and taught seven years as an adjunct faculty member for the Graduate Institute’s Master’s Program in Integrative Medicine.

He is a member of the American Osteopathic Association, the American Osteopathic Board of Physical Medicine, the American Academy of Osteopathy and the Cranial Society. He is past president of the North American Academy of Neural Therapy, and sits on the board of the BART Foundation.

Perry likes to think that he can play the saxophone, and is a big jazz enthusiast. His wife, Riye, is also an osteopathic physician. They have two children (who have yet to enter the profession).

Robert is an impassioned creative and an advocate for justice, skillfully merging his extensive professional background with a commitment to crafting content that inspires action against injustice. A childhood friend of Bart, Robert became interested in brain injuries after his accident, and contributed creative content to the Foundation from its earliest days. (e.g. The BART Foundation logo). He joined the Foundation board after Bart passed away and is committed to its mission.

Robert is the Founder of MOKM Creative Services, www.weMOKM.com offering photography, videography, graphic and web design, branding, and marketing.

Robert's career is distinguished by his work with some of the most influential names in the corporate and entertainment world. His portfolio boasts collaborations with Apple, Beats by Dr. Dre, and SONY. He has also worked with a host of celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, Willow & Jaden Smith, Slick Rick, Khalid, Geoffrey Zakarian, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zephyr Teachout, further cementing his reputation in the industry. His editing contributions also include Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown”.

In 2016, Robert’s passion and artistic activism intersected as he co-founded Create A Space NOW, where he now serves as the Creative Media and Marketing Director. This platform aims to engage and drive conversations around the silencing of Black lives and racial issues in America, striving to combat bias, racism, and systemic oppression. www.createaspaceNOW.org

In 2021 Robert and his partner, Hettie Barnhill, released their first film, “A Love Letter to Brian, Lesley and Michelle.” This award-winning production has been screened and acclaimed both nationally and internationally, receiving recognition from Congressman Ro Khanna and the California Senate 2021 Outstanding Achievement in Community Engagement and Education.

Designed for a wide range of audiences, the film has been successfully screened for high school students, with engaging talkbacks featuring the filmmaker held after each screening. These talkbacks are essential to the experience, promoting vital conversations centered around the film's themes. Teachers have praised the program, with one stating, "Your programming once again offered an opening for some of the most difficult - and most important - conversations we can have with students today."

As an official selection in numerous film festivals, including the Montreal International Black Film Festival, the Colorado International Activism Film Festival, the Silicon Valley International Film Festival, and the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival, "A Love Letter to Brian, Lesley, and Michelle" has earned widespread attention and acclaim.

Artist Statement:

"Art is my weapon, I aim with intent."

The importance of narrative is woven into the very fabric of our lives. It can connect us, to open our eyes to new perspectives, and to bridge the gap between diverse experiences. This immense power, however, comes with great responsibility. Too often, narratives are manipulated, distorted, or exploited for purposes that stray far from the truth. My mission as a filmmaker is to seek the authenticity of stories, to present them in their truest form, to give voice to the voiceless, and to illuminate the unseen.

In my creative journey, I wield my camera and my pen not just as tools, but as instruments of justice and truth. My objective is to share stories and shape narratives that resonate, challenge, and inspire. I plan to use every ounce of my creative energy to ensure those stories are told with honesty, respect, and a deep sense of responsibility.

The healthcare market can be a confusing place, and Bryan knows how intimidating it can be to navigate the thickets of available information out there to find the right provider. A personal struggle made this too tangible for him. Trying to help his mother navigate a complex chronic disease made it clear to him how much lack of support there was for healthcare scenarios that weren't symptoms based.

This all fuels his passion for helping patients avoid the headache that can come with looking for healthcare by finding the right doctor on the first try and avoiding unnecessary runaround. He has a knack for looking at the big picture and figuring out how to create sensible processes that benefit the individual interactions between patient and care provider.

Bryan is the co-founder of Tidal Health Group. A digital marketing and technology agency centered around building authority for healthcare brands.

He had the pleasure of knowing Bart for several years. He saw first hand the power of grit and determination a loved one can bring while searching for alternative care. He is honored to help serve and bring exposure to the growing field of alternative brain injury treatment.

Bryan lives in New York City with his wife, son and dog.

Michael Lewis, MD, MPH, MBA, FACPM, FACN, is one of America’s most trusted physicians. Board-certified and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American College of Nutrition, he is a retired Army Colonel who served our country for over 31 years. Lewis has advised professional athletes, top ranking military officials, and senior executives at the Department of Defense and the U.S. Government on brain optimization.

He is an internationally renowned physician, researcher, and speaker on brain health and the author of the bestselling When Brains Collide: What Every Athlete And Parent Should Know About The Prevention And Treatment of Concussions And Head Injuries (Lioncrest Publishing, 2016). He is also the founder of the 501(c)(3) non-profit, Brain Health Education and Research Institute, dedicated to helping patients with traumatic brain injuries recover as quickly and fully as possible and others how to optimize their brain health.

A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Tulane University School of Medicine, he completed post-graduate training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

His private practice, BrainCARE, is in the Washington DC suburb, Potomac, Maryland, where he takes a comprehensive approach to concussion recovery, brain injury, ADHD, sports and cognitive performance, and brain health issues. His pioneering work in the military and since has helped thousands of people around the world. Dr. Lewis is a consultant to the U.S. Army and Navy as well as several organizations and companies around the world, a founding member of the Pop Warner Youth Football Medical Advisory Board, and a member of the Board of Directors for National Collegiate Rugby.

Dr. Lewis’ last position in his three decade long military career was as the Principal Investigator, Congressionally-mandated Longitudinal Study of TBI in OIF/OEF, where he brought his epidemiologic expertise to design ways to evaluate long term outcomes. Dr. Lewis also served as the Public Health expert for the Afghanistan National Army Health System; the DoD Nutritional Supplement Committee; and was the DoD’s subject matter expert on the use of omega-3 nutritional therapy for the prevention and treatment of head trauma.

Dr. Lewis was the DoD Global Emerging Infections Surveillance Program Director at the AFRIMS Research Laboratory in Bangkok, Thailand, where he established, developed, and coordinated a multi-million-dollar programs across eight countries in Asia with numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Dr. Lewis graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, and the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Officer Basic Course, U.S. Army Airborne School, and U.S. Army Ranger School before serving as an intelligence officer in Infantry Divisions on the Demilitarized Zone in Korea and Fort Ord, California, for five years prior to attending medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Following his residency training in Preventive Medicine and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Dr. Lewis began a long period of international research and as a professor at the Uniformed Services University medical school. Dr. Lewis retired at the military rank of Colonel at the end of a distinguished 31-and-a-half-year career in the Army.

As a scientist and researcher, Dr. Lewis has published several dozen peer-reviewed manuscripts in the areas of omega-3 nutrition for head injuries, infectious diseases, tropical medicine, and large-scale outbreak investigations. He has authored chapters in several medical textbooks and presented over 100 abstracts at scientific and medical conferences all around the world.

While in training at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), he conceived and developed the ESSENCE program, the nation’s first and largest Syndrome-based Disease Outbreak Recognition System that supports the Military Health System, is the foundation for the National Bio-Sense Program, the CDC’s National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP), and surveillance programs at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, all state health departments, and many health departments around the world. His pioneering work started an entirely new field of epidemiology and led to the creation of The International Society for Disease Surveillance. Dr. Lewis has patents for the use of omega-3 fatty acids for traumatic brain injury including the development of an entirely new delivery system.