Speakers at the 2025 Mississippi Opioid Summit
Joey Flowers, MBA
Chief Strategy Officer, ARCare
Joey Flowers began her career with ARcare more than 29 years ago. She has led operations, grants management, transportation, construction management, network development and was named chief strategy officer in 2019. When she joined ARcare, it operated nine Federally Qualified Health Centers; today the organization has expanded to Kentucky and Mississippi, and operates more than 90 facilities across Arkansas, western Kentucky and Mississippi.
Flowers has been instrumental in partner and network development on a statewide basis with regional hospital systems, behavioral health systems and the state PASSE system – Empower.
Along with ARcare, Flowers also serves as vice president of the White River Regional Housing Authority Board of Directors, former chairman of the Rural Health Association of Arkansas, past Board Member of Mid-South Health Systems, along with various city chambers of commerce, and has participated in the development of three network coalitions with Arkansas and Kentucky through the Office of Rural Health and the Delta Regional Authority. Flowers has received certificates from state and national leadership programs.
At ARcare, Flowers has generated more than $20 million in grant funds to support healthcare and community partnerships.
Flowers graduated from Arkansas Tech University in 1991 and earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Phoenix in 2007.
Derick Ziegler
Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer
Derick Ziegler has served as Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer since March 2023. In this role, he leads all ongoing and future transformation initiatives and guides all merger and acquisition synergy efforts across the system. He also serves as the executive sponsor for Baptist’s Center of Excellence in Addiction Medicine, a role he has held since its inception in 2019. Ziegler has enjoyed a highly successful health care leadership career that spans more than four decades. In the U.S. Army, he rose to the rank of Colonel and served as the administrator of some of the largest Army hospitals in the U.S. After retiring from the military, Ziegler joined Baptist in August 2008, and served for two years as CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital-Union City and four years as CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis. Under his leadership, both hospitals received numerous awards and recognitions including Modern Healthcare’s 19th Best Place to Work in Healthcare (Baptist Union City) and Becker’s Hospital Review 100 Great Hospitals in America in 2013 (Baptist Memphis). Ziegler was later promoted to Vice President of Affiliate Integration and the Regional Market. In this role, he led numerous transitions, transformation projects, acquisitions and mergers. Ziegler helped lead the integration of Mississippi Baptist Health System with Baptist Memorial Health Care, realizing more than $209 million in synergy savings. Most recently he led a system-wide strategic growth and cost savings transformation initiative that resulted in $309 million in financial improvement in one year. Ziegler is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch
Mississippi Attorney General
Lynn Fitch was sworn in as Mississippi’s 40th Attorney General and first ever woman Attorney General on January 9, 2020. She was re-elected to her second term in 2023. Raised in Holly Springs, Miss., Fitch earned both a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and a Juris Doctor degree at the University of Mississippi. At the age of 23, she began her legal career as a Special Assistant Attorney General in the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office. She continued her career in private practice as a bond lawyer, accumulating more than 35 years of legal experience both in private practice and public service. Before becoming Mississippi’s chief legal officer, Fitch served as Mississippi’s elected State Treasurer for eight years. Prior to that, she was selected by Governor Haley Barbour to serve as executive director of the Mississippi State Personnel Board (MSPB), and served as deputy executive director at the Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) and as counsel for the Mississippi House of Representatives Ways and Means and Local and Private Legislation Committees. Fitch was active on the national level as state treasurer, serving as vice president for the National Association of State Treasurers and as chair of the State Financial Officers Foundation. Since taking office as Attorney General, she has served on the executive committees of the Republican Attorneys General Association and the National Association of Attorneys General, and as co-chair of the National Association of Attorneys General Human Trafficking Committee. In 2022, TIME magazine named Fitch to its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the world and Worth Magazine named her to its Worthy 100 for her work protecting women and children. She was recognized as one of Mississippi’s Top 50 in 2017, 2022 and 2023; selected as Outstanding Woman Lawyer of 2012 and a Woman Trailblazer by the Mississippi Bar Association; and honored with the prestigious Susie Blue Buchanan Award by the Mississippi Bar Association’s Women in the Profession Committee. Fitch was also named a Mississippi Business Journal Leader in Finance in 2016 and Leader in Law in 2010, as well as a 2015 Honoree of the Women in Government Leadership Program by Governing Magazine. Fitch has also been active in her community, serving as a member of the boards of several charitable organizations including First Responders of Mississippi, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Goodwill Industries, and the American Red Cross.
Mike Eiden, LCSW, LCADC, CSAT, CCS
Eiden Integrative Counseling
Mike Eiden is a licensed clinical social worker, licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselor, board certified sex therapist and certified sex addiction therapist. A graduate of the University of Louisville’s Kent School of Social Work, Eiden has worked in mental health and substance abuse treatment for the past 12 years in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Eiden is currently a PhD candidate and his dissertation is focused on educating parents on how to address internet addiction in their children.
Eiden works in private practice, specializing in cases of traumatic bonding, process addictions and complex trauma. He also facilitates professional CEU training on screen addiction, trauma treatment and sexual addiction, while educating parents, teachers and school administrators about internet addiction.
Donald McDonald
Technical Expert Lead, JBS International
Donald McDonald is a nationally recognized expert in peer recovery support services. As a person who is thriving in recovery from severe mental health and substance use disorders, McDonald has spent his career driving meaningful change as a services consumer, peer provider, policy advocate and recovery community leader.
McDonald served as the national field director of Faces & Voices of Recovery, Advocacy and Education director for Recovery Communities of North Carolina, and executive director of Addiction Professionals of North Carolina. His direct service experience includes providing recovery supports in opioid treatment programs and social-residential model settings. He supervised and trained peers in multiple organizations, including the statewide recovery community organization he helped found. As executive director of his state’s trade association, he ensured peers were included, valued and trained to lead.
For nearly six years as a JBS International technical expert lead, McDonald has provided training and technical assistance for grant-funded initiatives, working with more than 500 rural consortia nationwide. He helps communities enhance their prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery support infrastructures in response to substance use and overdose crises.
McDonald holds a Bachelor of Education degree from North Carolina State University and a Master of Social Work degree from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He became a recovery coach professional as part of the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery inaugural cohort in 2016. As a member of the Recovery Policy Collaborative at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, he solves problems with national leaders who also have lived and living expertise. His contributions have been recognized with a Bronze Key Award by the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence and a Dogwood Award by the North Carolina Attorney General. He was a founding board member of the Carolinas’ first recovery high school and served on the executive board of one of North Carolina’s largest managed care organizations.
A U.S. Navy war veteran and former preschool music teacher, McDonald lives in Raleigh, N.C., with his wife of 30 years, Jill, in a now-empty nest after raising four amazing children. He believes recovery could be vibrant, joyful and unapologetic. A musician, hiker and pie lover, he recovers out loud on social media. His motto? “We get better than well. Come get you some.”
Brock Eaton, DO
ARcare
A family medicine physician, Dr. Brock Eaton is an Arkansan born and raised. Dr. Eaton began working with ARcare in 2017, and is focused on the preventive aspect of our community care. He enjoys practicing medicine at ARcare because he is able to use the full breadth of his medical training. When he is not practicing medicine, Dr. Eaton enjoys spending his free time with his wife, their children, and their two dogs. He enjoys duck and deer hunting in his native Northeast Arkansas.
Robert Whitten, Lieutenant
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics
Lieutenant Robert Whitten has more than 17 years of experience in law enforcement, more than seven years in fire service and more than three years as an emergency medical technician and currently works for the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. Whitten is a graduate of the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers Training Academy and began his law enforcement career with the Vicksburg Police Department in 2007, where he worked patrol for three years before becoming a member of the Narcotics Unit. In 2014, Whitten joined the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics where he had the opportunity to work in various divisions, including the Jackson District Office, Pharmaceutical Diversion and Drug Labs/Hazardous Environment Response. Whitten has been involved in numerous large-scale and complex investigations at the local, state and federal levels. In 2022, Whitten was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and was tasked with overseeing the equipment and training for the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Drug Labs/Hazardous Environment response. In 2024, Whitten began to oversee Pharmaceutical Diversion for Central Mississippi and helps local, state or federal agencies with any investigation or coordination of cases involving the loss or theft of Pharmaceuticals. Whitten has attended many training certification courses, including Basic and Advanced Pharmaceutical Investigations, Clandestine Lab Operations, Safety and Handling, Haz-Mat Technician Level A/B/C/D, and the FBI Hostage Negotiations Course. In addition to his duties involving Drug Labs and Pharmaceuticals, Whitten has been an instructor/speaker for numerous local, state and federal organizations and agencies, as well as, for many law enforcement agencies and training academies in Mississippi. Outside of work, Whitten still lives in the Vicksburg area with his wife and three amazing children, two boys and one girl, ages 16 years, 3 years and 4 months old. He enjoys every opportunity to be able to spend time with family and friends, as well as the opportunity to be able to serve the citizens within the State of Mississippi.
Clay McCombs, Training Coordinator
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics
Clay McCombs was born and raised in Carthage, Miss., where his family owned a local grocery store. He began his career as an intern with Carthage Police Department in 1998. McCombs earned a degree in interdisciplinary sciences from Mississippi State University with a concentration in sociology, criminology and insurance. He later served as an investigator with the Carthage Police Department, and in 2004, he joined the Leake County Sheriff’s Office and became a Special Contract Agent with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. In 2012, he became the chief investigator for the Leake County Sheriff’s Office where he oversaw all criminal investigations. McCombs worked multiple assignments with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations which led to arrests throughout Mississippi and across the United States. In 2017, McCombs joined the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and later became the team leader for the crisis negotiation team while he continued to work as a task force agent with the DEA. In 2023. McCombs became the training coordinator for the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and is assigned to the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers’ Training Academy where he coordinates investigative classes and schedules public appearances to educate the public about current drug topics. McCombs is married and lives in Carthage with an 11-year-old son and a daughter who is seven years old. He enjoys hunting, coaching baseball and teaching archery at his former high school.
Keynote Speaker
Carlton Hall
President and CEO of Carlton Hall Consulting LLC (CHC)
Carlton Hall is the president and CEO of Carlton Hall Consulting LLC (CHC), a multi-faceted, full-service consulting firm designed to provide customized solutions and enable measurable change for communities, organizations, families and individuals. Hall has provided intensive substance abuse prevention focused and community problem solving services to the nation for 25 years. His responsibilities, unique set of skills and experience have made him one of the most highly sought after instructors and guides for community problem solving across the nation and internationally, with successful achievements in South Africa, Ghana, Bermuda, Kenya and other countries. CHC is honored to be invited to contribute to annual convenings of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the governing body of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Carlton spent 12 years with the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) serving in several leadership positions and including as Acting Vice President, Training Operations and Acting Director for CADCA’s National Coalition Institute.
Currently, Hall and the CHC team provide executive training and technical assistance support to the Southeast Prevention Technology Transfer Center Network (Region 4).
Hall also serves sits on several boards of directors, including the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children and Movendi International. Learn more about Carlton Hall.
Jeffrey Bratberg PharmD, FAPhA
University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy
Dr. Jeffrey Bratberg studies the essential and emerging roles community pharmacists play regarding opioid overdose response, harm reduction and opioid use disorder treatment. He advocates for pharmacists’ expanded roles in medication access, public health promotion and policy change through research, practice and teaching. He is the principal investigator on a two-year grant from the Foundation on Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) for a study on “Pharmacy-Based Buprenorphine Induction and Maintenance: Overcoming Barriers to Care Through Simultaneous Policy Analysis, Real-World Demonstration Projects and Toolkit Dissemination.” He co-teaches an interprofessional, honors grand challenge course on opioid use disorders, and has reviewed and contributed to national opioid use disorder courses including the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorders course from the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He is an associate editor of the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association (JAPhA) and co-produces and hosts a weekly public health pharmacy podcast with his pharmacy students called “The Regimen.”
Dr. Ronald Only, DO
ARcare
Dr. Ronald Only grew up in the Philadelphia area, where the opioid overdose rate is 25 times the national average. This crisis drew Dr. Only to the study of addiction medicine, for which he has been board certified for more than 15 years. He treats patients with opiod use, alcohol use, benzodiazepine and methamphetamine use disorders along with other addictions. Dr. Only is passionate about the role he plays in helping patients respond to treatment and improve their lives. He also treats various psychological disorders such as bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. Dr. Only enjoys being part of a team that helps put people’s lives back together.