Dick Dillon serves as the Vice President and Treasurer of the NIATx Foundation Board of Directors. Dick has worked in the behavioral health field for over 35 years, starting with a volunteer coordinator role and holding most clinical and management positions, including COO of a large Midwest non-profit counseling agency. In November, 2011, he formed his own consulting organization, Innovaision, LLC. The work of Innovaision focuses on helping behavioral health and other human services organizations become more innovative and effective by combining common sense, vision, creative and innovative programming, evidence-based practices, and cutting-edge technology.
Dick has a deep history with NIATx and is a firm believer in the Foundation’s mission to help behavioral health organizations improve access, care, and outcomes:
I first became aware of the original NIATx project when I heard Dr. Dave Gustafson speak about using engineering principles to address issues complicating access to treatment at a national addictions conference. I had been–and still am–a big fan of borrowing good ideas from other fields to address problems in innovative ways, and Dave’s outline was brilliant. I remember telling him shortly afterwards that if I was ever able to make it happen, I would come work with him for free. I think I may have achieved that goal!
I was on the Board of the State Associations of Addictions Services (SAAS) group, and that group embarked on a collaboration with NIATx Foundation on a few annual conferences. Additionally, I worked directly with the NIATx team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on at least one innovative project of my own: using video game technology to deliver counseling services. We provided a national demo of this project and published a paper on it.
Perhaps inevitably, I was asked to serve on the NIATx Foundation Board. I believe as of this moment, I am the longest continuous serving Board member. Over the past years, I have held all of the offices, including Treasurer, which I am currently doing for the second go around. I am firmly committed to the goals and directions of the NIATx Foundation and believe that this group represents the pinnacle of “out-of-the-box” thinking in the addictions/behavioral health field. NIATx represents the very best concepts of collegiality, strategy, and the aggressive development of innovative, yet solid, practices.