James Strohecker, President, HealthWorld Online

An e-health pioneer and wellness visionary, James has focused on bringing fundamental principles of wellness from the world's great healing and wisdom traditions into mainstream cultural awareness for over 25 years. He is CEO and co-founder of HealthWorld Online (www.healthy.net), the world's first Internet network for wellness and complementary/alternative medicine, and co-creator of the Wellness Inventory assessment and life-balance program (www.WellPeople.com) and certification training. He was co-founder of the first business-to-business Internet network for the natural products industry.

As founding Vice-President of Future Medicine Publishing, he acted as Executive Editor of the classic and influential work, Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide (600,000 copies in print). He has co-authored five books, including Natural Healing for Depression: Solutions from the World's Great Health Traditions and Practitioners (Perigee, 1999), and has collaborated on over 20 titles in the fields of natural health, psychology, human potential, yoga, meditation, and world spiritual traditions.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Tennessee in anthropology, his interests have taken him from archeological expeditions to Mayan ruins in the Yucatan to years of intensive study of yoga and meditation in India. Strohecker has served on the numerous boards, including the President's Advisory Council for Bastyr University and the Board of Trustees of the American University of Complementary Medicine.     Contact: jim@healthy.net

John W. Travis, MD, MPH

Dr. Travis is the creator of the original text version of the Wellness Inventory. He is the founder and co-director of Wellness Associates, a consulting and publishing group whose mission is to transform the culture from its current focus on authoritarianism/domination into one of partnership/cooperation. He completed his medical degree at Tufts University and his preventive medicine residency at Johns Hopkins University. He began his career in wellness by developing one of the first computerized health risk appraisals while serving with the U.S. Public Health Service's Division of Health Services Research.

In 1975, he gave up the practice of sick-care to open the world's first wellness center (Wellness Resource Center, Mill Valley, CA). This work attracted national attention culminating in an appearance on "60 Minutes" with Dan Rather in 1979. In 1979 the center was transformed into a non-profit educational corporation that enabled Dr. Travis to lecture and give workshops around the world in order to facilitate other helping professionals in the techniques and processes pioneered by his staff.

His publications include the "Wellness Inventory" (Wellness Assoc. Publications, 1975, 1981, 1988); the Wellness Workbook, coauthored with Regina Ryan (Ten Speed Press, 1981, 1988, 2004); Simply Well: Choices for a Healthy Life, coauthored with Regina Ryan (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1990, 2001); Wellness For Helping Professionals, Creating Compassionate Cultures, coauthored with Meryn Callander (Wellness Assoc. Publications, 1990); A Change of Heart: The Global Wellness Inventory, coauthored with Meryn Callander (Arcus Press, 1993); and The Society of Prospective Medicine's Handbook of Health Assessment Tools, with 5 co-editors (SPM Press, 1999).

He and his wife are currently writing a book to foster individual and planetary wellness through changing the norms of how babies are born and treated in their early years. He is also a co-founder of The Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children.

Bobbie Burdett, Director of Training

Bobbie Burdett, Director of Training for HealthWorld Online, was a co-creator of The Wellness Resource Center in 1975 with John W. Travis, MD., which was the first wellness center in the U.S. She co-developed the wellness coaching process for the Center, which, to our knowledge, was the first of its kind. She was instrumental in the development of pioneering Preventing Burnout programs for helping professionals, which were conducted in many locations in the continental US, Hawaii, Alaska, Canada, and Costa Rica. She has also been a featured speaker for large and small audiences on the subject of wellness.

She has continued to coach and hone her craft for the past 30 years. In the process, she has developed an unparalleled depth of understanding of wellness and the Wellness Inventory. Recently, she has been instrumental in revising the Inventory and its commentaries.

As a young adult, she realized the limits of conventional medicine. Being a lifelong learner and independent scholar, she has studied many aspects of wellness and alternative medicine for nearly 40 years. In recent years, she has focused her studies on Positive Psychology with Martin Seligman, PhD, and Social Neurobiology with Dan Siegel, PhD. She co-organized The Mindsight Symposium in Portland, OR, in 2005, on the subject of social neurobiology.

Ms Burdett now brings her depth of experience and broad knowledge base to the co-creation and implementation of the Wellness Inventory Certification Training for HealthWorld Online, as well as maintaining her coaching practice, Authentic-Life Coaching, in Asheville, NC.

Shri Kant Mishra, ABMS (BHU), MD, MS, FAAN, FIAA - Medical Director

Shri Kant Mishra is professor of neurology, and co-ordinator of the Integrative Medicine Program at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. Dr. Mishra is a a member of many prestigious neuroscience and integrative medicine societies. He has been chair of the study section of NCCAM (NIH), and serves on the editorial board of many integrative medicine journals. He is president of American Academy of Ayurvedic Medicine (AAAM). His goals are to develop evidence-based, cost-effective quality clinical care, education, and research in integrative medicine, particularly Ayurveda.

He graduated Ayurveda charya, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (ABMS) summa cum laude, from Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, India; MD (Honours), from the University of Toronto Canada; and received a Masters in Administrative Medicine from the University of Wisconsin.

Dr. Mishra has been involved in various healthcare business ventures and serves as a consultant for many for-profit and non-profit organisations. He was president and chair of the Indian Medical Association of Southern California, and Regional Director of AAPI (American Association of Physicians of Indian origin), serving as the chair of the Integrative Medicine Committee.

Mark Zyga, Chief Technology Officer, Programming Engineer

Mark has provided the systems integration, programming, and technology infrastructure for the Wellness Inventory Assessment and Life-Balance Program.

Bringing over 20 years experience in system design/architecture, programming, systems analysis, network administration, project management and training, Mark engineered and programmed the technical architecture of the Wellness Inventory program. He has consulted with leading Fortune 500 companies including IBM, ATT, General Motors, Federal Express, Citibank, MCI, Bell Labs, Toyota and Solomon/Smith Barney. Mark has also taught programming at Purdue University and NYU, as well as digital imaging/photography at Parsons School of Design.

In addition to his programming and design skills, Mark is also a certified yoga instructor, A practicing hypnotherapist and Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Psychology.     Contact: Mark Zyga