Meet the Team - DNA Diagnostics Center

David Silver

Vice President of Business Development and Strategy

David Silver is the Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at DDC. He has over 20 years’ experience in marketing, strategy, and new-product development in Consumer Products, Consumer Services, and Healthcare. David provides leadership and direction for DDC’s product and technology licensing, new-product development, contract services, mergers and acquisition support, and new-partnership establishment.

Prior to joining DDC, he worked in brand management for SunnyD Delight Beverages Company, a private-equity beverage business acquired from Procter & Gamble.

Scott Cramer

President & Chief Executive Officer

Scott Cramer serves as President & Chief Executive Officer of DDC, a leading global DNA-testing company. Scott’s proven record of producing rapid growth and results across many medical device businesses will further enhance DDCs position as the leading and most accredited genetic testing laboratory in the world.

Scott has over 30 years of commercial and operational excellence experience with medical device companies and has held executive leadership positions for venture-backed companies throughout the cardiology, peripheral vascular and female health markets. In previous roles, Scott became the President and CEO of Accriva Diagnostics where he relocated the company to San Diego, transformed all aspects of the business and grew sales resulting in the sale of Accriva to WerfenLife. Scott worked as an EIR with Warburg Pincus in 2013 and prior, had served as President and CEO of Novasys Medical Inc., from 2010 to 2012 and of Bacchus Vascular Inc., from 2007 to 2009.

Throughout his career, Scott has held other leadership positions in healthcare companies including Senior Vice President of U.S. Sales and Account Services for VNUS Medical Technologies, Vice President of U.S. Sales at EndoSonics Corporation, National Sales Manager at Cardiometrics, Inc., and several positions at Baxter Healthcare Corporation’s cardiovascular division.

Scott currently serves on the Board of Directors of DNA Diagnostics Centre, Inc., Veran Medical and as Chairman of Biocoat, Inc. He has also previously served as Executive Chairman of NeuWave Medical, on the Board of Directors of Accriva Diagnostics, Vascular Insights, AccuVein, Venous Health, Novasys and Bacchus.

Scott provides our growing organization a level of insight and experience that will help DDC achieve aggressive growth and product development goals both domestically and internationally.

Lonny Schwartz

Vice President of Marketing

Lonny Schwartz serves as Vice President of Marketing at DDC. With a focus on diagnostic and life-science markets, he has extensive experience leading cross-functional teams in developing and implementing successful sales, product, and marketing strategies. Lonny is highly productive and focused on revenue generation and profitability across all products and services; he has a +20-year track record delivering results with publicly- and privately-held companies—including two award-winning digital agencies—as a practice leader in digital-innovation strategy and growth.

Prior to joining DDC, Lonny held various executive and senior leadership positions, including Director of Marketing with Myriad Genetics, Digital Strategy Director at Rockfish, Director of online Strategy at 3D Systems Corporation, and Vice President of Business Development at Web Leads, Inc. He currently serves on two advisory boards and provides guidance for non-profit organizations.

Kimberly Ballard

Senior Vice President of Human Resources

Kimberly Ballard serves as Senior Vice President of Human Resources at DDC. Kim has over 25 years as a proven Human Resources leader in a variety of industries and organizational settings, with heavy emphasis on organizations undergoing significant growth and change. Her experience spans domestic and global manufacturing, distribution and service companies (Medical Device, Pharmaceutical, Bio-Technology, Precious Metals and Consumer Service & Products) in a variety of business partner and specialized functional roles. Kim has led the design and implementation of HR strategy, and numerous processes and initiatives to enhance productivity and agility to leverage talent and investment.

Prior to joining the DDC team, Kim spent nearly 10 years as Vice President of Human Resources with Accriva Diagnostics, Inc. which was acquired by Werfen in 2017, and continued in leading the successful integration of Accriva into Instrumentation Laboratory, a Werfen Company.

Throughout her career she has had the opportunity for hands-on impact and leadership in all HR functional areas – she has built HR strategy from the ground up, driven cultural transformation, led the development of leadership pipelines, overhauled operations platforms, pushed the boundary around M&A integration, and has acted as a strategic partner with CEOs and Board of Directors to build the framework and leadership team needed to drive strategic execution.

Jason Judd

Vice President of eCommernce

Jason Judd serves as Vice President of eCommerce at DDC. Jason is a strategic business leader in Sales and Operations and leads multiple divisions at DDC, including eCommerce, Inside Sales, Contact Centre Operations, Satellite Locations, Logistics and Supply Chain. Jason leverages data driven insights to deliver superior results, profitable growth strategies and high performance teams. He has significant experience in creating value through diverse selling channels, sales force effectiveness, and commercial support services. Jason has a deep background and passion for excellence in delivering quality products to the marketplace in a cost effective and predictable way. Jason has successfully led the company through transformations of performance via systems and culture and employs efficient, compliant, business solutions to ensure the successful development of management teams and broad ranging infrastructure systems.

Prior to joining DDC in 2007, Jason owned and operated a private counseling practice and Jason managed the Crisis Counseling unit at the Mental Health & Recovery Services of Warren County, Ohio.

Kathy Leis

Vice President of Operations

Kathy Leis serves as Vice President of Operations at DDC. Kathy is a highly effective, results-oriented professional with 30+ years of increasing responsibility in Quality, Regulatory and Lab Operations within the life science industry. Kathy builds strong relationships with internal cross-functional customers partnering to create value and deliver results. She has an in depth understanding of global regulatory, clinical and quality requirements. Kathy is a change agent with proven success in translating requirements to build bridges from regulatory to business needs, and creating and implementing quality systems to drive compliance.

Kathy joined DDC in 2012 where she served as the Director of Operations before being promoted to Vice President of Operations. Previous roles include Director of Operations for Orchid Cellmark, a leader in the genetic testing field, successfully acquired by LabCorp in 2011.

Kathy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Technology from the University of Dayton and is certified as Medical Technologist by the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP).

Dr. Michael Baird

Chief Science Officer

Michael Baird, Ph.D., serves as Chief Science Officer at DDC and has over 30 years of senior leadership experience in DNA Diagnostics and Genetic testing and is recognized as a pioneer in the DNA relationship testing world. His expertise is a unique blend of regulatory, compliance, quality, clinical and technical allowing him to better understand the operational needs of the company. He has built technical teams focused on product innovation and who are committed to work diligently and cooperatively to achieve focused results and corporate success.

Prior to joining DDC, Michael held the positions of Senior Scientist, Laboratory Director, and Vice President of Laboratory Operations with LifeCodes. Michael has published over 50 articles in peer reviewed journals and additional publications on the use of DNA for identification. Michael was the first to testify in a criminal trial involving DNA as forensic evidence and has since testified in over 350 criminal cases.

Michael is a past chair of the Relationship Testing Standards Committee of the AABB, is a fellow at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and also a member of the AABB, American Society of Human Genetics, the American Genetics Society, the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, the International Society of Forensic Genetics, and the American Society of Hematology.

Michael holds his doctorate in genetics from the University of Chicago.

Michael Gandy

Chief Financial Officer

Michael Gandy serves as Chief Financial Officer for DDC. Mike brings extensive industry experience, combined with a strategic mindset and strong leadership to DDC, with over 30 years of experience with rapidly growing technology companies with a heavy emphasis in the MedTech sector. Mike has significant experience with both publicly and privately held companies, holding key roles in major transactions including corporate partnerships, mergers and acquisitions. Mike has had significant involvement in all aspects of a private equity and venture-backed technology companies, including financing, strategic planning, commercial operations, manufacturing, accounting and administration.

With broad operational foundations in Marketing, Strategic Planning, Cost Accounting, Human Resources, and Information Systems, Mike works effectively across traditional functional boundaries. Mike brings great value by integrating his financial management expertise and breaking down organizational impediments to better achieve financial and operating objectives.

Mike has held executive leadership positions with several venture funded, developmental stage companies. He has served as Chief Financial Officer of Invuity, as well as of Novasys Medical, a company focused on improving women’s health, leading up to and through its acquisition by Roper Industries in December 2012. Prior to Novasys, Mike served as the CFO of Baxano, a San Jose-based spinal device company, where he had broad functional responsibility for finance and accounting, including oversight of venture funding activities. Mike also served as Vice President, Finance and CFO at privately held Bacchus Vascular, leading the finance and accounting groups leading up to the successful acquisition of the company by Covidian in 2009. Prior to that role, he held positions in financial management at a number of private and public companies, including nine years of increasing financial management at a division of NYSE-traded Guidant Corporation.

Mike holds a B.S. in Finance from California State University, Long Beach, and earned his M.B.A. from California State University, Fullerton.

Executive

Executive Position

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Name Here

Wrongly-convicted, exonerated by DNA testing

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Lydell Grant

DNA test frees man serving life sentence for Houston murder, leads to new arrest.

New DNA testing in a 2010 Houston murder case has led to the exoneration of one man — after nine years behind bars — and the arrest of another.

Lydell Grant, 43, was found guilty of stabbing 28-year-old Aaron Scheerhoorn to death in the vicinity of a nightclub on the sworn testimony of multiple witnesses, according to reports. He was cleared last month — and released from prison — after DNA obtained from Sheerhorn’s ﬁngernails was tested, using new technology. He was serving a life sentence.

On Thursday, Jermarico Carter, 41, was charged with the murder after the same DNA linked him to the crime. Investigators got a match to his DNA using an FBI database containing the DNA of convicted criminals, Fox 26 Houston reported Sunday.

“On behalf of the Houston Police Department, I want to extend an apology to Mr. Grant and his family as they have waited for justice all these years,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Friday on Twitter. Acevedo said Carter “has recently confessed to his role in Mr. Scheerhoorn’s killing.” Carter was in custody in Georgia on unrelated charges, the chief said.

Grant said Saturday that he wasn’t mad at Grant for sitting in jail for a crime he committed, Fox 26 reported. “I’m not mad at him at all,” he said, according to the station. “I forgive him because he know now what he did.”

The station reported that as of Saturday Grant no longer had to wear an ankle monitor or abide by a curfew. Houston prosecutors said they will move for Grant’s formal exoneration before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Grant’s lawyer Mike Ware of the Innocence Project of Texas was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that he believes erroneous witness identiﬁcations based on outdated and ﬂawed techniques used by detectives helped to wrongly convict his client.

Mistaken witness identiﬁcations contributed to more than 70 percent of the more than 360 wrongful convictions in the U.S. that have been overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project.

Leading The Way: Because Truth Matters.

Executive Team

Jason Judd

Christy Kaupinen

Debra Davis

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David Silver

Vice President of Business Development and Strategy

Scott Cramer

President & Chief Executive Officer

Lonny Schwartz

Vice President of Marketing

Kimberly Ballard

Senior Vice President of Human Resources

Jason Judd

Vice President of eCommernce

Kathy Leis

Vice President of Operations

Dr. Michael Baird

Chief Science Officer

Michael Gandy

Chief Financial Officer

Executive

Executive Position

Name Here

Wrongly-convicted, exonerated by DNA testing

Lydell Grant

DNA test frees man serving life sentence for Houston murder, leads to new arrest.