Knoxville Chapter February Meeting

Dr. Gordon is Associate Dean of Community Engagement in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and the College of Social Work, and former Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. She recently completed two large federal grants, one of which implemented a brief relationship intervention with a primarily low-income population and the other of which investigated a couples-based smoking cessation intervention with Latino couples expecting a baby. She is currently completing a project funded by the Templeton Foundation that connects churches, community agencies, and the University of Tennessee to deliver empirically supported relationship education to Knoxville couples, and is leading a William T Grant Foundation Institutional Challenge award to develop a community-university research partnership with Cherokee Health Systems. She is the co-author of two books on how to help couples recover following infidelity published by Guilford Press (one for the lay public and a companion book for therapists), and of numerous articles on forgiveness, infidelity, and treating couple distress. This work has been cited in national media outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today, Psychology Today, Men’s Health, Fatherly.com, OZY.com, and in regional and local TV and news media. In addition to her research, teaching, and outreach activities, she is a wife to a patient husband and two wonderful daughters.

I serve as the Operations and Outreach Coordinator for Relationship Builders which is a project of the UTK College of Education, Health and Human Sciences. I have worked and volunteered in many capacities with children and young mothers in the Knoxville community for over 15 years. My heart has been to remove the stigmas associated with mental health services and support the cultivation of holistic services for underserved and marginalized populations.

I believe that everyone deserves the support and tools necessary to become their best self! I also believe that those supports are not always readily accessible to all groups. I want to be a bridge to open the door to the possible for anyone who desires to come through it. I believe that sometimes includes showing folks where the door is. It takes a village to improve our world. I want to be an active participant in that village and that world.

I serve as the Clinical Programs Coordinator for Relationship Builders. My primary interest is to help make relationship education more accessible to all people. I believe that we exist within the context of relationships and that they contribute significantly to our wellbeing. Therefore, I am interested in helping to make relationship education for adolescence, young adults, and couples more accessible. By extension, I want to help improve the; accessibility of couple’s therapy. Beyond my interest in relationship education, I am also interested in mental health support for individuals with chronic illness and the impact of chronic illness on relationships

JOHN D. HOUSTON, CPA is founder and principal of John D. Houston CPA, a local Chattanooga CPA firm. His more than 45 years of public accounting experience in the Chattanooga area includes 12+ years with two national accounting firms.

Mr. Houston's tax consulting and CPA services firm provides tax compliance and consulting services for privately held companies, business executives and professionals, investors, self-employed individuals, and estates and trusts. His specialized areas of tax expertise include tax estate and trust planning, consulting on asset sales and acquisitions, choice of business entity, and client representation before the Internal Revenue Service and state taxing authorities.

Mr. Houston is a frequent speaker on Federal income taxation with emphasis on recent tax legislation and current developments. He has held various offices with the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants including the TSCPA and Chattanooga local chapter board of directors and the TSCPA Federal Taxation Committee. He has previously served on the board of directors of the SE Tennessee American Red Cross and is a past president and current director of The Estate Planning Council of Chattanooga. Mr. Houston is a 1977 highest honors graduate of the University of Tennessee's College of Business Administration where he majored in accounting and management science.