The Mind Works Team

Betty Carey

Betty Carey is a managing partner of Mind Works. Prior to Mind Works, Betty worked with CornerStone Strategic Communications for four years and Strategic Partners Group for five years. She led their respective consumer motivational research practice. During that time, she worked with clients across a variety of industries to uncover the both the "rational" and "emotional" motives that their products and services elicit from their customers. This formed the basis for developing brand and communications strategies. Betty has over 20 years of marketing and management experience with Fannie Mae. She worked extensively in all aspects of marketing, including market research, product design, product management, advertising, direct mail, and distribution. She also completed extensive and innovative work in the area of customer research, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty.

Stephanie Garrison

Stephanie Garrison is a managing partner of Mind Works. She has more than 15 years experience with customer satisfaction and loyalty management. She assists companies in understanding consumer motivation and behavior as it relates to their marketing communication strategy. Stephanie left Fannie Mae in 2000 to establish a consulting business, which focused on organizational and process design, and implementation. At Fannie Mae, she was Vice President for Single-Family Operations in Washington. Her responsibility included for the customer loyalty of over 2000 customers, strategic planning, and financial and operational management.

Shelia McCann, M. Ed. SM. GPC

Shelia McCann’s focus is in the area of technology. Shelia is a veteran of small and large group facilitation in both the public, private and non-profit arenas. Shelia has over twenty years of experience in senior executive positions in the public and private sector. Her expertise includes operations management, process re-engineering, administrative services, customer relationship management, team development, leadership development, and financial management.

Marta F. Bethart

With over 30 years in the field, Marta Bethart is one of the most experienced Hispanic focus group moderators in the U.S. market. She started in the marketing research field in 1981 and has been moderating multicultural qualitative research for 30 years. She has conducted thousands of groups for a vast array of consumer goods, financial services, social issues and political candidates - subjects as varied as home pregnancy tests to beer, fast food restaurants to banking, pharmaceuticals to over-the-counter medications, telecommunications to broadcast media, educational products to Internet companies.

Ilona NIckels, MA

Ms. NIckels has worked on qualitative studies for the past six years as an interviewer, moderator, writer, and editor. She has interviewed high level federal and private sector policy officials on a wide variety of public policy topics and has conducted numerous consumer and opinion leader focus groups and IDIs. Prior to her survey research work, Ms. Nickels spent over 20 years on Capitol Hill working for the Congressional Research Service as an analyst and lead researcher, as well as for four different Members of Congress, including the House Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader.

Ana Rivera

With more than twenty years of experience working with health care and government agency clients, nonprofit organizations and private industry, Ana Rivera has moderated a large number of focus groups, ethnographies and IDIs. She is bilingual (Spanish) and bi-cultural (Latina and African American). She is a RIVA certified moderator and is also certified in Social and Behavioral Research. Ms. Rivera's extensive research experience and marketing background serve as a valuable asset to her clients.

Ruth Sando, PhD

Dr. Ruth Sando is a seasoned applied anthropologist who delivers actionable insights to help organizations meet their goals. Her work focuses on uncovering unmet needs and opportunities: ideation, effective communication strategies and messages; attitude, awareness and usage studies; and in-context behavior. She has worked for over 10 years as a consultant - designing, developing and implementing research and evaluation projects for public and private sector organizations. She is a trained user and license holder for NVivo software, a data analysis tool for content and thematic analysis of large data sets.

Rosita Thomas, PhD

Dr. Rosita Thomas has more than eighteen years of experience working in public opinion research. She has conducted hundreds of in-depth personal interviews and focus groups. She specializes in health care, and association research. She has a special interest in research focusing on Baby Boomer quality of life issues and ethnic research. Some of her clients include CMS, Centers for Disease Control, Northwest Federal Credit Union, and Harvard University.