Karen Waddell

Karen Vinyard Waddell is the President and Chief Executive Officer for The Lynn Institutes: the Lynn Institute for Healthcare Research, Inc., and for the Lynn Health Science Institute, Inc. An energetic, motivating executive with more than 35 years of organizational leadership, Ms. Waddell specializes in taking organizations to the next level. Prior to her arrival at LHSI, Ms. Waddell served in leadership positions at both non-profit and for profit hospitals in Oklahoma and California, as CEO of one of the nation's largest non-profit organizations for kids, and as Associate Vice President and Executive Director of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Since returning to her native Oklahoma in 2007, Ms. Waddell has worked through her strategic planning firm, Karen Vinyard Waddell & Associates, Inc., to conduct numerous strategic planning programs for both for profit and non-profit organizations and state agencies. Prior to her tenure at the University of Oklahoma from 2007 – 2010, Ms. Waddell served as President/CEO of the Florida-based Eckerd Youth Alternatives, a $110 million non-profit provider of residential services for troubled youth.

Ms. Waddell is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, a member of Leadership Oklahoma Class I, Leadership Oklahoma City Class II, Sallt Class I, Esther Women, and is a member of the Special Review Committee of the Oklahoma Commission on Human Services. Ms. Waddell was appointed by Governor Fallin as a Commissioner for the Department of Human Services. Ms. Waddell is the proud mother of two adult children and grandmother to six children.

Franklin Willis, J.D.

Franklin Willis has been with the Lynn Institute since 1997 serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this his career followed a number of paths. He was a senior Federal Government official, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Transportation and, subsequently, in the Department of State in Washington DC. Leaving governmental service, he became Group Vice President for Legal and Environmental Affairs for Rollins Environmental Services, Inc. of Wilmington, DE. He recently returned to the Institute from a leave of absence to serve in Baghdad, Iraq as the senior aviation official for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Mr. Willis has lectured on contracting and budgeting of clinical trials by investigative sites at numerous conferences and workshops. He graduated from Harvard, magna cum laude, and the University of Michigan Law School, cum laude, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Law Review. He has been a member of the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University and Georgetown Law School and a lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School. He served on the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation 1995-2000 and reappointed in 2005.