2025 Six State Summit
The 2025 Six State Summit is gearing up to be a fantastic conferencing event for IDD service providers, State IDD regulators, and other IDD organizations in the CMS region VIII states (SD, ND, MT, WY, CO, and UT). Click here for the full agenda. Conference topics will include the status of Medicaid funding on the national level, legislative efforts, Federal updates, trends in rate setting and methodology, using data to influence policy making, workforce issues & solutions, IDD technology, and state panel discussions. There will also be a full slate of excellent vendors for attendees to learn about exciting new products and services available to the IDD world. Our featured speakers and presenters are below.
Tom Rice, ANCOR (Keynote Speaker)
Tom Rice, currently the Director of Policy & Regulatory Affairs at ANCOR, has extensive experience in the disability field, working in education, direct care, and case management for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Massachusetts and Florida. He spent two decades at Florida’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities, ultimately serving as Deputy Director of Programs, where he oversaw policy development and compliance with federal Medicaid regulations. His personal connection to disability advocacy stems from being a father to four children, two of whom have intellectual and developmental disabilities, reinforcing his belief in strong community-based support systems.
Drew Smith, Senior Director Public Services Sector
Drew Smith is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Public Sector Services in Seattle. He specializes in Medicaid financing and policy, stakeholder engagement and health and human services systems transformation. His primary areas of concentration include assessment-informed resource allocation methodology, policy implementation and planning, data mapping and analysis, and performance monitoring and planning.
Shane Spotts, DEON health
Advocate and policy expert working to give individuals with disabilities the power to live their best life by transforming community and healthcare support systems.
Presenters TBA
NCI is the nation’s premiere organization that collects service quality data for IDD services across the United States. NCI representatives will be presenting data findings for the six state region and how providers and states can use the information for quality improvement.
Peter Leidy
Peter Leidy has been learning from people with disabilities since 1983. Peter is a consultant, facilitator, listener, learner, improviser, and speaker who focuses on personalized supports and community membership for people with disabilities. He also writes and sings songs about human serviceland and those who find themselves connected to it.
Joe McBeth
Joseph M. Macbeth is the Chief Executive Officer and President of the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP) and has worked in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities for 40 years – beginning as a Direct Support Professional. Macbeth is recognized as an international leader in the advocacy & movement to recognize direct support as a profession and is a highly sought after speaker on the workforce challenges that affect the disability system. He co-authored the Report to the President: America’s Direct Support Workforce Crisis: Effects on People with Intellectual Disabilities, Families, Communities and the U.S. Economy for the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities (PCPID, 2017), he was the Issue Editor for Impact: The Direct Support Workforce and People with Intellectual, Developmental, and Other Disabilities(University of Minnesota, 2018). While working in New York, Macbeth partnered with the State University of New York (SUNY) by assisting more than 500 direct support professionals advance their college education through the “Disability Studies Certificate”. He is a guest faculty at the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities (NLCDD) and currently sits on several boards of directors and The College of Direct Support’s National Advisory Board.
Mike Strouse, Ph.D.
For more than 30 years Mike has led GoodLife Innovations, Inc. and its subsidiaries. Mike’s extensive work encompasses research, development, refinement, and dissemination of evidence-based, nationally-regarded, community service models that consistently produce person-centered care and high quality-of-life outcomes for those served. Mike’s consultant services are widely sought after by private corporations, cities, and state governments interested in best-practice and emerging technologies for models supporting semi-independent populations in the community. Mike earned his Ph.D. in developmental and child psychology and holds a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas. He continues to participate in research, assist with the training of graduate students, and successfully maintains this important 40-year partnership.
Jordan Wagner
Jordan is a Project Manager at the University of Ohio Nisonger Center. Jordan will be speaking on all things technology in the IDD world.
