Barbara W. Thompson
President and CEO
A nationally respected expert in health care communications, Barbara has been helping clients reach their goals for more than 25 years. She founded The Roberts Group in 1981, establishing one of the first U.S. strategic advertising agencies to focus exclusively on health care. Her vision for a smart, strategic health care creative has earned dozens of honors and exceptional results.

What does Barbara bring to the table?

• Deep insight into the specialized nuances of health care
• Leading expertise in strategic planning, marketing, branding, public relations and crisis management
• Bottom-line focus that helped one large hospital system increase overall market share by 17 percent

Mark A. Thompson
Executive Vice President
If you need strategic marketing for health care or physician group practices, Mark’s expertise offers bottom-line benefits. With more than 30 years of industry experience and leadership, he can masterfully analyze and integrate client input in conjunction with market knowledge, research and field feedback to develop solid solutions.

Mark brings you:

• Insight to identify core values that drive consumer decisions
• A level of expertise in physician research and marketing that enabled him to help create a new model for physician referral programs used across the nation
• Carefully crafted marketing strategies and communications plans that achieve results

Lori A. Bruss, MEd, CHES
Executive Vice President
Lori’s in-depth knowledge of market sectors and communication media can help you achieve strategic goals. A certified health education specialist, Lori holds a master’s degree in health education and has more than 13 years of experience in health care marketing, including a leadership role in community health education at a prominent academic medical facility.

Lori has what it takes to get results:

• Understanding of the best methods to capture your target audience’s attention and maximize ROI
• Forward-thinking approach that embraces new communication genres, such as subsegmented Web sites and social networking
• Level of excellence that earned her a Partners in Public Health Award from the state of Wisconsin

Laura Pagel
Media Director
Laura prides herself on strong relationship-building skills, which help her achieve optimal results for clients. With a bachelor’s degree in communications and more than 17 years of experience in media sales, planning and implementation – both as a vendor and a customer – she communicates clearly, conducts in-depth research and is a tough negotiator. All of these talents come together fluidly and make her especially effective at creating impactful media plans.

Laura’s expertise can help you:

• Understand the target market with the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Reach your target audience directly and repeatedly, using the most appropriate media vehicles for the campaign
• Get more for your media dollar through skillful negotiations, often resulting in added-value media