Our Leadership Team
Ashley Albers, DO – VP of Medical Services
A Hendersonville native, Ashley Albers, DO attended medical school at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kirksville, MO. She completed an internal medicine residency with UMDNJ-SOM in Stratford, NJ before moving back to North Carolina where she completed the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship here in Asheville. She joined Four Seasons in July 2013, first as a hospital-based Palliative Care provider, and is currently serving as the VP of Medical Services while caring for hospice patients.
Janet Bull, MD, MBA, FAAHPM
Four Seasons Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer
Janet Bull, MD, MBA, FAAHPM is the Chief Medical Officer at Four Seasons Compassion and holds a consultant assistant professorship at Duke University Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the AAHPM, board certified in hospice and palliative medicine and holds a hospice medical director certification.
Currently Bull serves on the steering committee for the Palliative Care Research Co-Operative Group and chairs the Membership Committee Janet has authored or coauthored several papers on palliative care and quality data reporting.
She helped develop the QDACT (Quality Data Assessment Collection Tool) which is now being used across multiple national sites to benchmark data and collaborate on quality reporting through the Global Palliative Care Quality Alliance.
Bull directs the research department at Four Seasons and has served as the Principle Investigator on over 45 clinical trials in hospice and palliative medicine. She is Program Director of the Palliative Care Immersion Course and a principal of Four Seasons Consulting Group, which offers consulting services in hospice, palliative care, and research. She also serves as a Senior Medical Advisor to Aspire Health.
Bull was the recipient of the Sharon O. Dixon Award in 2007, the Cuniff-Dixon Hastings Award in 2012, and the Josephino Magno Distinguished Physician Award in 2013. In 2014, she was recognized as one of the Top 30 Visionaries in the Field award by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and is the Principal Investigator on a 2014 Center of Medicare Innovations Grant demonstrating the value of palliative care. She is the current President of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Millicent Burke Sinclair, Ed.D, MBA, SPHR®, SHRM-SCP
Four Seasons – Chief Executive Officer
Passion, Excellence, and Integrity are three key pillars which guide Millicent. With a passion for supporting individuals on discovering and living their cause and purpose – Millicent’s purpose is to engage all individuals so excellence through high performance becomes the norm. She demonstrates her purpose daily through a commitment to innovation and wellness as she inspires and sets a standard for lifelong learning and advancing professional competence and practice within healthcare. Millicent holds a doctorate degree emphasizing on adult learning/education and a Masters degree in Business Administration. She has an advanced certification in Business and Marketing Education and is certified from both HRCI and SHRM with the designations of SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) and SHRM-SCP (Senior Certified Professional). She is also a learner completing her second year in the Thayer Institute’s Executive Healthcare Masters’ Certification Program. As a published author on Adult learning and organizational improvement she leverages data and resources ensuring that the entire workforce is committed to high performance as well as long-term strategic growth, innovation, and stewardship so excellence in care occurs at ALL times.
Throughout Millicent’s time at Four Seasons she has been an integral piece of creating, improving, and innovating departments, processes, and the culture of the organization. With increases in engagement, decreases in turnover, reduction of healthcare and organizational expenses, strengthened inter-professional collaborations, innovative marketing strategy deployment, enhanced growth team collaboration within the community, and improved focus on what is most important to quality patient care Millicent embraces the bricolage journey. She completely rebuilt the Human Resources Department, created an organization-wide wellness program: Vibrant4Life, challenged the Volunteer department for increased growth, re-engaged the Facilities and First impressions teams, substantially led the home care agency acquisition and operations, conducted and executed a needs assessment for Palliative Care post grant funding, worked with the senior leadership team in developing the leadership institute further, and has developed with the growth team a truly powerful marketing strategy that ensures responsiveness, reliability, and respect for all patients and families.
Prior to joining Four Seasons in 2014, from 2003-2007 she was the VP of Strategy and HR at a manufacturing company and drastically improved the organizational culture, market share, and quality product development and delivery. Starting in 2008 she ventured into the realm of education as a university professor and a local educator bringing awareness to the importance of constantly learning, growing, and challenging the norm. She developed complete programs and reinvented processes providing more opportunities for students to be prepared for their career within the community both locally and globally.
Millicent’s heart was home when she was blessed to join Four Seasons’ as she has known since she was a little girl that Healthcare was her calling and where her purpose could really come alive. But even more importantly Four Seasons served her family, makes healthcare possible for all regardless of the ability to pay, and is constantly listening to the community and improving therefore positively impacting lives, and that is what Millicent enjoys so greatly. Millicent’s dedication to hospice and palliative care has afforded her the opportunity to study alongside some of the brightest healthcare professionals within the Thayer Institute’s Masters certification program for Healthcare Executives and in Multi-View Incorporated’s CFO program where she obtained her certification last year. Prior to accepting the role of Chief Executive Officer, Millicent served as Chief Operating Officer for the organization. Previously she also held the titles of Chief Operating Officer for Palliative Care, Home Care, and the Vice President of Employee and Volunteer Solutions for the nationally respected, award-winning hospice and palliative care non-profit organization, Four Seasons Compassion for Life. Together she partners with all of Four Seasons to ensure that all who are served receive the best co-created care possible.
As an avid learner and nationally known educator and consultant in areas of business strategy, non profit management, human resources, operations leadership, and healthcare, Millicent sets the bar high and makes what is necessary possible for all she meets. Because of Millicent’s life purpose she is a living example of her purpose as she learns daily, grows continuously, and lives a life of joy. This is the culture she creates for all around her.
Millicent was born and raised in Henderson County, Four Seasons even served her family with the passing of her grandfather at Elizabeth House in 1999. Even as a child, born one month premature, she was determined, driven, and had a heart to serve homeless, those imprisoned, in need, and those seeking a more well life by constantly improving and removing barriers. She is married, lives in Flat Rock, NC and is honored to be the mother of two children. Millicent and her family are dedicated to total health and wellness including living an organic lifestyle. She enjoys the outdoors, learning, researching, building the community, and art and music. She is a member of New Beginnings World Outreach Church and a Paul Harris’ Fellow of Hendersonville’s Rotary Club.
Rikki Nugent Hooper – Senior Director of Palliative Care
Rikki is a strong believer in quality care at end of life and advocates for her patients and families to achieve their goals.
In 1991, Rikki immigrated to the U.S. after completing basic nurse education in England. As an RN, she worked in oncology and in critical care prior to becoming an FNP. As an FNP, she worked in critical care, sleep and pulmonary medicine before coming to Four Seasons in 2004.
Rikki is certified in Advanced Hospice and Palliative Nursing and provides care for patients in all settings, both pediatric and adult. She has presented at both regional and national meetings on a variety of topics. She also serves on the AAHPM Task Force for Quality.
Outside of work, she has volunteered at the Free Clinics in Henderson County and has been a Girl Scout leader for 17 years. She has 2 daughters and 3 grandchildren. She loves to spend time outside, gardening, hiking and generally enjoying the mountains. She also enjoys sewing, knitting
Rhonda Oakes, VP of Clinical Operations
Rhonda is a certified hospice and palliative nurse and brings over 25 years of hospice experience to her current role. Throughout her 30-year healthcare career, she has grown and developed her expertise and understanding of the interdependencies among disciplines, learning designs, implementation science, and sustaining quality. Rhonda has a diverse background due to her various leadership roles throughout her career. Prior to joining the Four Seasons family, she was the Regulatory Analyst for Netsmart Homecare and Hospice EHR (Formerly Change Healthcare). Her role included providing guidance and overseeing regulatory and clinical analysis and integration for hospice and home care providers across the nation with diverse opinions and needs.
Rhonda is an active member of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA). She has served as chair on several HPNA committees, a past board member for region 2 of the Tennessee Nurses Association, member of the ANA, AHIMA, and HPNA. Rhonda is currently an appointed committee member finishing up her two-year term and current chair on the Situational Judgement Development Committee for the Hospice and Palliative Credential Center (HPCC). She is an active State Ambassador, following national and state level legislature as part of the HPNA State Ambassadors. Rhonda is a member of the SNOMED CT Nursing Virtual Clinical Reference Group. She has written for publication and presented at State Hospice and Palliative Care Associations for annual conferences and Omaha System International Conferences. Rhonda joined the Omaha System Board of Directors in 2017.
Rhonda has collaborated with hospices across the nation in finding best practices and championing their integration using the electronic health record. Rhonda is one of the collaborative co-authors of the ICNP® Catalogue – Palliative Care. https://www.icn.ch/sites/default/files/inline-files/Palliative_Care.pdf. The International Classification of Nursing Practice (ICNP®) is part of the World Health Organization Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC).
Rhonda’s volunteer work with Healthier TN sparked her desire to return to a not-for-profit organization and serve the clinicians and their communities. Rhonda’s personal goal is to be part of the solution to increase access to palliative and end-of-life care in underserved populations and rural communities.
Lauren Purdy has been a part of the Four Seasons Family since 2011 and has worn many hats in her tenure with the agency. She started as a Volunteer Coordinator at Four Seasons and has provided leadership over the Volunteer Team since 2013. She has led the Employee Solutions (HR) Team since 2015 and now also oversees the Facilities Department.
Lauren brings over 11 years of volunteer management experience, 6 years of human resources experience, and 13 years of leadership experience to her role at Four Seasons.
She started her career of service in 2005 when she dedicated two years of full time national service through AmeriCorps working with at risk youth in San Jose, CA. She’s called WNC home since 2007, and is an alumna of the University of North Carolina at Asheville where she received her Bachelor’s Degree in History.
Lauren lives with her husband, daughter, three dogs, flock of chickens, and honeybees on their little homestead in Candler, NC.
