Our Team
We bring different perspectives to the table, but we’re united by a love for purposeful work, thoughtful advocacy, and real connection; we believe recovery is possible and everyone deserves a real shot at it.
kent emry
Kent Emry spent more than two decades building things from the ground up. As a serial entrepreneur in the healthcare industry, he acquired and turned around failing skilled nursing facilities across Oregon, Colorado, and California, transforming clinically distressed operations into thriving centers of care. He founded Oregon Infectious Disease Solutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, served as chairman of the board for BioCorRX, a publicly traded addiction treatment company, and built a career defined by running toward the problems other people walked away from. He holds a degree in Health Care Administration from Oregon State University and is a licensed nursing administrator.
In 2022, following a racing accident, Kent suffered a massive stroke. He lost the ability to walk, talk, or move his right side. Of everything that followed, aphasia proved the most persistent and the most isolating, stripping away his ability to communicate and, with it, much of his independence. Through access to intensive, private-pay speech therapy programs, Kent made remarkable progress. But his recovery revealed something he couldn't unsee: the most effective therapies for aphasia are prohibitively expensive, rarely covered by insurance, and largely unknown to the people who need them most.
That is why he founded Aphasia Relearned. Kent knows from the inside what it costs to fight this condition, and he knows what becomes possible when someone gets real access to the right care. He built this organization so that cost and lack of information would stop being the reason someone's recovery stalls. That same instinct led him to found the EMRY Center in 2026, a residential care facility for adolescents with eating disorders. Today, Kent continues his own healing journey, working hard, building new neural pathways, and proving every day that a stroke doesn't get to write the last chapter.
Founder
Leah archer
Leah Archer is a dedicated physical therapist, military veteran, and healthcare leader with a diverse clinical background spanning over two decades. She earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Miami in 1992 before going on to complete her Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT) at the University of Puget Sound in 2005. Leah Archer brings over 20 years of rehabilitation experience and executive military leadership to her role as Co-Founder and Executive Director of Aphasia Relearned. She holds a B.S. in Biology from the University of Miami (1992) and earned her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from the University of Puget Sound in 2005, following five years of distinguished service as a Captain in the United States Army.
Throughout her career, Leah has worked across the full continuum of care, including outpatient orthopedics, pediatric special education supporting students from preschool through high school, and continuous service in skilled nursing facilities since 2005. A former Captain in the United States Army, she served five years on active duty, developing the strategic discipline and leadership that now guide her executive role at Aphasia Relearned. Her expansive clinical background includes skilled nursing care, outpatient orthopedics, and school district special education settings.
Having traveled to 34 countries and visited nearly every U.S. state, Leah brings a broad, compassionate, and culturally enriched perspective to her clinical work and organizational leadership. Driven by a passion for patient advocacy, she is honored to lead Aphasia Relearned in expanding resources, recovery support, and community for individuals living with aphasia. An avid traveler who has explored 34 countries and almost every U.S. state, Leah leverages her global perspective, deep clinical expertise, and leadership background to drive forward the mission of Aphasia Relearned.
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Charis is an advancement professional with more than a decade of experience helping mission-driven organizations strengthen relationships, build engaged communities, and inspire generosity. Her work spans strategic fundraising, annual giving, major donor cultivation, board engagement, strategic planning, communications, alumni relations, volunteer leadership, and organizational planning.
Throughout her career, Charis has helped independent schools and nonprofit organizations build sustainable advancement programs by connecting people to purpose. At Midland School, she led annual giving, capital campaign support, communications strategy, and alumni engagement while consistently exceeding fundraising goals. More recently, she expanded her experience at San Domenico School by creating events and programming that reengaged alumni and donors, strengthening alumni communications, and supporting annual fund initiatives. At Hebron Academy, she partnered with school leadership during a period of transition, working to rebuild trust, strengthen donor relationships, and support advancement strategy.
Today, Charis consults with Aphasia Relearned, helping develop grant strategy, fundraising systems, donor communications, database infrastructure, newsletters, and long-term advancement planning. Influenced by Jim Collins' Good to Great and the Berkeley Changemaker program, she believes sustainable fundraising grows from strong relationships, aligned leadership, and a shared commitment to mission. Her work is grounded in the belief that when people feel genuinely connected to an organization's purpose, they become enthusiastic advocates, generous supporters, and partners in creating lasting impact.
Charis L. Adams
Tricia is a seasoned Business Office Professional with over 35 years of experience. Her experience is vast and includes many years in finance, business development, event planning, and employee relations. Never afraid to try new things, she has been a licensed life insurance and annuities broker and is now a certified notary public.
Tricia’s work experience includes 12 years’ experience working for her church and non-profit organization. The non-profit ran a basketball league for “at-risk” youth in a city that had a high risk for gang and criminal activity. During that time, she taught workshops on life skills such as budgeting and using credit to high school age youth. She also enjoyed being the “snack bar lady” at the basketball league.
Tricia is a mother to 8 children, 5 of which are stepchildren, or as she likes to call them “Bonus Children” and considers herself blessed to be grandmother to 9 grandchildren. She was reunited with her first love about 9 years ago and they were married in 2021. She keeps herself busy being actively involved in a support group she belongs to by volunteering and participating in public outreach events.
She started working with Kent in 2021, about 7 months before his stroke. She has seen Kent’s progress and has a passion for Aphasia Relearned and would love to see others get the opportunities Kent has been able to experience.
Tricia Curry
Bryan Hopkins is a singer, songwriter, actor, author, podcaster, entrepreneur, and storyteller whose career has always lived somewhere between rock ’n’ roll and real life. Best known as the longtime frontman of Elvis Monroe and former frontman of Hollywood rockers Paperback Hero, Hopkins is now stepping into his next chapter as a solo artist with a deeply personal new album shaped by love, loss, resilience, and the stories that made him who he is.
Beyond music, Hopkins is the founder of Red Chapter Clothing, a children’s book author, and host of the Heroes Journey Podcast, where he explores the people, experiences, and moments that shape our lives.
His newest song, “Pieces of Me,” may be his most meaningful work yet. Written specifically for Aphasia Relearned, the song became the centerpiece of a 2026 benefit concert created to raise awareness and help provide access to intensive therapy for people living with aphasia. Hopkins now serves on the organization’s board, bringing his voice, music, and platform to a mission centered on helping people reclaim theirs.
From the stages of rock ’n’ roll to the pages of a book, behind a microphone, or behind a podcast, Bryan Hopkins has built a career around one thing: telling stories that mean something.
bryan hopkins
Most people spend a career trying to break into one world at the highest level. Josh Schroeder operates at the top of two. For more than two decades, he has worked simultaneously as a composer and sonic brand strategist and as a creative director and brand architect for founder-led and mission-driven organizations. As a composer, he has scored original music for Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Morgan Stanley, Starbucks, and Uber, earned sync placements on CBS, NBC, ABC, and BBC, and spent five years shaping the audio identity of Morgan Stanley's annual Women's Conference. He is a Grammy performer, a National John Lennon Songwriting Scholarship winner, and was signed to Casablanca Media Publishing in 2009.
On the brand side, his work has supported $33M in real estate transactions through brand storytelling, driven 50% revenue growth over three consecutive years for a wellness franchise on a $2,000 seasonal budget, and built complete marketing systems for organizations across healthcare, wellness, and consumer lifestyle. He has a particular gift for building brand identities from scratch, translating a founder's vision into a public presence that earns trust from the people who matter most.
More recently, Josh has been working closely with the EMRY Center, an adolescent eating-disorder residential treatment facility, building its complete brand identity, digital presence, and marketing infrastructure from the ground up alongside founder Kent Emry. That work brought him to Aphasia Relearned. He joined the board because he believes the organizations doing the most important work are often the ones most in need of a clear, compelling public voice, and building that voice from nothing is what he does. Josh is the founder of Thousand Echoes, a boutique creative agency based in Salem, Oregon.