STAR CENTER FACULTY

Expert faculty and Baxa support staff are essential partners in the STAR Center’s success as a training and professional development facility. The following individuals participate as faculty in selected training programming at the Center. New faculty members may be added as classes and schedules dictate.

  " Very knowledgeable
     and experienced
     instructors! I was
     very impressed! "

   – Julie M. / Toronto, ON.

Roxana M. Case

BA Chemistry
Lead Microbiologist, Baxa Corporation

Roxana Case works for Baxa Corporation, an ISO and FDA-registered medical device manufacturer, as a member of the Quality department. The focus of the microbiologist includes environmental monitoring, cleanroom compliance and cleanliness and sterilization issues for Baxa products. Case made the change to medical device manufacturing in 2006 after a number of years in the food and beverage microbiology industry.

Prior to joining Baxa Corporation, she was the company microbiologist for Breckenridge Breweries for more than eight years. Case was responsible for quality control as well as running the laboratory and testing.

Eric S. Kastango

MBA, RPh, FASHP
President, Clinical IQ, LLC

Eric Kastango is a member of the USP Council of Experts, Sterile Compounding Committee and a Fellow of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (FASHP). He received a BS in Pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences and an MBA from the University of Phoenix. Kastango’s pharmacy practice experience includes hospital, community and homecare settings in a variety of roles including Corporate Vice President of Pharmacy Services for Coram Healthcare Corporation. Kastango also managed an FDA-registered cGMP manufacturing operation for Baxter Healthcare Corporation. He is the founder and President of Clinical IQ, LLC based in Florham Park, New Jersey.

Mr. Kastango has served on the ASHP's Council of Education Affairs and as a pharmacy surveyor for the Accreditation Commission for Health Care, Inc. (ACHC). He has participated in more than 50 invited professional presentations on a variety of pharmacy practice topics such as USP General Chapter <797> compliance, compounding sterile preparation, pharmacy compounding errors, quality systems, collaborative pharmacy/nursing practice models, and tocolytic therapy and on the pharmacist's role in the evaluation of therapeutic effectiveness of drug therapy. Kastango is also the author of numerous chapters and other content for various ASHP books, videos, software and educational materials.

Patricia Kienle

RPh, MPA, FASHP
Director of Accreditation and Medication Safety for Cardinal Health Pharmacy Solutions

Patricia Kienle is the Director of Accreditation and Medication Safety for Cardinal Health Pharmacy Solutions.

She received her pharmacy degree from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, and a Masters in Public Administration from Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  She completed an Executive Fellowship in Patient Safety from Virginia Commonwealth University and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

She has served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and as President of the Pennsylvania Society of Hospital Pharmacists.  She is a Fellow of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, named Pharmacist of the Year by the PSHP, and the recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award in Hospital and Institutional Practice from the American Pharmaceutical Association Academy of Pharmacy Practice and Management.  She has served on the Pharmacotherapy Specialty Council of the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties, as the pharmacist member of the Hospital Professional and Technical Advisory Committee of the Joint Commission and on the Board of Governors of the National Patient Safety Foundation.

She is a frequent presenter to professional groups, with special interests in promoting medication safety, accreditation and regulatory issues in pharmacy and providing pharmacy services in integrated health systems.

Karl Kilgore

AIA
President, CPI Group

Karl Kilgore is a health-facility planning specialist and architect with NCARB certification and current licenses in many of the mountain and Western states including Arizona, California, Colorado and Texas. Kilgore graduated with honors from The University of Houston College of Architecture, receiving his Bachelor of Architecture in 1976 and was first licensed in 1978. He has focused exclusively on the design and construction of health care facilities for more than 30 years and currently practices as a hospital designer and specialty equipment planning consultant. He has extensive experience as a healthcare architect, design specialist consultant and as the owners’ representative. He has been a member of, and participated in, the Academy of Architecture for Health (AIA), American Hospital Association (AAH), Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses (AORN), American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), and the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).

Kilgore is co-founder and President of The CPI Group in Denver, Colorado. Part of his focus on specialty equipment planning has been design work for cleanroom environments for sterile compounding. His attention to process and workflow enhances the built environment to minimize conflict and turbulence within the spaces and to facilitate sterile technique at every opportunity.

Carl J. LaBella

MBA
President, CSI Testing, Inc.

Carl J. LaBella graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and holds an MBA from the University of St. Thomas. As president of CSI Testing, Inc., he has been involved in the testing and performance review of a variety of cleanroom and controlled environments. LaBella also served in management positions with hospital and contamination-sensitive electronics manufacturing firms. As the past president and board member of the Controlled Environment Testing Association, LaBella headed the committee that developed CAG-002-2006 Compounding Isolator Testing Guide and participated in development of other engineering control guidance documents.

LaBella has been invited to present to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacy, Controlled Environment Testing Association, Eagleson Institute and to the United States Pharmacopeia Sterile Compounding Committee. He has also written several articles on engineering control requirements relating to USP <797>.

Firouzan 'Fred' Massoomi

Pharm. D, FASHP
Pharmacy Operations Coordinator, Nebraska Methodist Hospital

Fred Massoomi received his Doctor of Pharmacy Degree from the University Of Kansas School Of Pharmacy, Lawrence, Kansas, 1990. His current position is acting Pharmacy Operations Coordinator with the Department of Pharmacy at Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, a position he has held since 1996.

Dr. Massoomi has lectured nationally on implementation strategies for compliance with USP <797>, proper hazardous drug management as outlined in the Centers for Disease Control’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Alert and proper disposal of hazardous drug waste as outlined by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Resource and Conservation Act of 1976. Through numerous presentations and publications, Dr. Massoomi has shared his passion for the practice of pharmacy with the goal of promoting the important role that individual pharmacists play in public safety. Dr. Massoomi was honored with the Health-System Pharmacist of the Year award from the Nebraska Pharmacists Association for his work with emergency preparedness for city of Omaha and State of Nebraska in 2004, selected as a Fellow for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists in 2006 and awarded Innovative Pharmacist of the Year by the Nebraska Pharmacists Association in 2007.

Luci Power

MS, RPh
Senior Pharmacy Consultant, Power Enterprises, San Francisco, CA

Luci Power is a prominent figure in the Hazardous Drug (HD) compounding field. Asked to serve on the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) HD Working Group where she was Group Leader for the Work Practices Small Group. Power became a contributing author to the 2004 NIOSH Alert: Preventing Occupational Exposure to Antineoplastic and Other Hazardous Drugs in Health Care Settings. With more than 32 years’ experience, Power recently served as lead author to the ASHP Guidelines on Handling Hazardous Drugs, published in June of 2006.

Power received her BS in Pharmacy and MS in Hospital Pharmacy from Northeastern University. Starting her career in Massachusetts, Power has spent the last 28 years working in San Francisco. She has 10 years’ experience as a Pharmacy consultant for Power Enterprises and most recently worked at the University of California Medical Center – San Francisco.

Laura A. Thoma

Pharm D

Dr. Thoma is responsible for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center's sterile product manufacturing and training programs. She has over 18 years' experience in training pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry personnel in all procedures and methods used in the aseptic preparation and quality control of sterile products.

Dr. Thoma runs training programs for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy students on the compounding of sterile preparations. These programs specialize in high-risk level compounding. She is a Member of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) Board of Directors and the Program Advisory Board. Dr. Thoma serves on the USP Sterile Compounding Committee. Additionally, she is a member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences, American Pharmacists Association, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers.

James T. Wagner

President, Controlled
Environment Consulting

Jim Wagner has more than 27 years’ experience assuring the performance of critical environments. Elected to serve on the USP Sterile Compounding Committee for the 2005-2010 appointment cycle, he has presented at many USP and other professional forums on sterile compounding.

As President of Micro-Clean, inc., Wagner was responsible for building the most respected performance evaluation firm in the United States. Recent activities include leading the Controlled Environment Testing Association’s (CETA) efforts to develop guidance documents for Chapter <797> of USP27-NF 22. Wagner serves on the board of the Controlled Environment Testing Association (CETA) and is a past president.

Wagner has been the primary instructor since 1995 for the Eagleson Institute class: Advanced Certification. This semi-annual class for the advanced certifiers in the United States has also been held internationally. He has served on the NSF International steering committee for rewriting and maintaining NSF std. 49 and has been a member of various working groups with the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (IEST), responsible for developing recommended practices for HEPA filters and Cleanrooms.