EXECUTIVE BOARD
David Hudson
President
David Hudson was born in Pueblo, Colorado and resides in Trinidad, Colorado. He runs an anesthesia company in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. David received his Associates of Science in Nursing (ASN) and Bachelor's of Science in Nursing (BSN) at Southwestern Adventist University, and his Master of Health Science (MHS) and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNA) at Texas Wesleyan University. He has been a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist forever. He is married to Dr. Angel Wright and has three sons. When not enjoying mission work, he enjoys snow skiing, mountain biking, scuba diving, and napping.
Cameron Allen
Board Member
Cameron started as a Surgical Technologist with the U.S. Army in 1993. He quickly fell in love with the Operating Room. He is a graduate of the NIFA surgical first assisting program and currently employed by Memorial Health Systems in Colorado Springs. He has participated in eight ISM trips and firmly believes in helping out the less fortunate in the world. His two boys are the most important thing in the world to him.
Mary McCormick
Volunteer Coordinator
Mary McCormick obtained her BSN in 1975. During her nursing career, she has worked in Burn ICU, ICU, Surgery, PACU, Urology and Home Health and Hospice. She retired from Nursing in December 2018 and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. She, along with her husband Jay, have been involved with surgical missions to the third world since 1992. She looks forward to continuing to work with ISM as they expand their outreach for surgical missions.
Erin Ford
Treasurer & Secretary
Erin has worked in EMS and HealthTech for more than 20 years. She is passionate about supporting healthcare providers by bridging the gap between technology and patient care. She has a BS in Emergency & Disaster Management and a MS in International Business from University of Colorado. As a proud mother and stepmother (where the "step" is silent), Erin cherishes her role in a family of five children and a granddaughter. Alongside her husband, Chris, she embraces a life enriched by their shared passion for exploring the world through travel.
Dr Jay Riseman
Vice President
Dr. Jay Riseman graduated Southern Illinois University in 1975 and went to work in the Renal Transplant/Immunology lab doing tissue typing and was a perfusionist for donor kidneys. In 1979, he enrolled in Nursing School, graduated 1981, worked ICU until medical school. He went to Medical School in 1983 while working part time as a nurse, graduating 1986. He went to Southern Illinois University Surgical Residency 1986 to 1991. He provided care in Surgery until 2009 when he began a Fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine through Kansas University. He provided Hospice/ Palliative care until he retired in September 2021. His wife, Mary, and he have been doing surgical missions yearly since 1993.
Dr Tracy Taggart
Board Advocate
Tracy Taggart is a trauma surgeon currently practicing in Palm Springs, CA. She has been in practice since 2007, and her first mission trip was in 2010. She has had the privilege of serving on teams in Kenya, Tanzania, Peru, Haiti, Guatemala and has joined
ISM in the Philippines on four trips so far. She brings extensive surgical and travel experience, a passion for mission work and a “can-do” attitude to the team.
Dr Roscoe Marter
Board Advocate
Roscoe was born in Maryland and raised on the east coast by a General Surgeon and a Nurse who were active in their church advocating for women’s rights. Roscoe and his wife have been in the Santa Clarita Valley since 1999. He is the father to 3 wonderful daughters ages 17-27yos.
He is the Regional Medical Director for Facey in the Santa Clarita Valley and the President of the Facey Medical Group. He started with Facey as a staff Physician OBGYN in 1999 and is still practicing actively. He has served at the local hospital as the OBGYN Chair, Surgical Peer Review Chair and served on the HMNMH Board of Directors for 12 years. He is the past Chair and current member of the Patient Care committee. He has completed a 2 year fellowship in Medical Leadership through California Health Care Foundation associated with UCSF, 125hours of CME through the American Association of
Physician Leaders (AAPL) and an MBA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Melissa McGinnis
Board Advocate
Melissa was born and raised in Iowa and then moved to Colorado in 1999 to attend Colorado College. She graduated in 2003 with a double major BA in Psychology and Sociology. After realizing her passion wasn’t in the Psychology field, she returned to school to do an accelerated nursing program and graduated with her BSN in 2008. Since graduating, Melissa has spent her whole nursing career working in the NICU, taking care of the tiniest of patients. She currently works as a bedside, Charge, and NICU delivery nurse and is a Certified NICU RN, as well as a Certified Extremely Low Birthweight RN. Melissa began volunteering with ISM in 2016 and enjoys traveling with the group on their annual trip to the Philippines. She loves the learning opportunities each trip provides and the ISM family. Melissa has a 10,12-, and 14-year-old, and when not busy with them she enjoys traveling for triathlons, paddle boarding, and pretty much anything outdoors.
Dr Brent Izu
Board Member
Dr Brent Izu obtained his undergraduate degree in Microbiology at Brigham Young University. He attended medical school at the Uniformed University of Health Sciences, and did his residency at Wright State University. After his first mission to Biri, he was hooked, due to his love for the patients, the operating breadth, the teams, and the culture. He finds the experience one of the most rewarding things about his line of work. Brent lives in Utah with his wife and six children
Jose 'Joone' Guevarra, Jr.
Board Member
Jose Guevarra Jr. (or 'Joone') graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy. In 2003 he attained Preceptorship Training in Surgical Technology. In 2009 he attended Training in Advanced Minimally Invasive Surgery Instrumentations. From 2005 to 2014 Joone worked as Surgical Tech/Assist at LivLite Bariatric Metabolic Clinic. Now retired, he is running his business and joined ISM in 2007 on our first mission in the Philippines.
Dr Catsim Fassassi
Board Advocate
Catsim is a physician with 3+ years of general surgery training working in the Emergency Department at a local hospital in Brooklyn, NY. He is currently working on obtaining the needed additional surgical training in order to make his dream come true: work as a surgical humanitarian full time. When not focused on surgical training, he and his wife dream of continuing his study of languages (French, Spanish, currently working on Arabic), learn anything he can about real estate (working on obtaining his license) and reading (currently reading Dune).
David Young
Board Advocate
David was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, but has lived for the past 30 years in Germany, Austria, Belgium and the UK where he worked in the international pharmaceutical industry in the marketing and communications space. He currently leads his own London-based consulting company, which specializes in global product positioning and branding for the medical industry. He has worked as an EMT and has been certified as an Emergency Scuba Medic. He has played the role of assisting in six missions, including several with ISM.
David graduated from WV Wesleyan College with a BS degree, studied at Nanzan University in Japan, and earned a master’s degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, AZ. David is a board director certified by the NACD, and sits on the board of two colleges, as well as being an advisor to the boards of the Hackney Empire Theater in London, and Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC. David loves to ski, kayak, ride horses, and scuba dive.