Worksite Staff
Jennifer Ring, RN, MPH, COHN-S/ CM
Jennifer has her Master’s in Public Health from the University of Minnesota and her BA from the College of St. Catherine. The last two years she has been working at the 3M Company in St. Paul doing work comp injury management and ergonomic evaluations. Prior to this she worked as an onsite occupational health nurse for a variety of companies in Eastern Wisconsin, including Land O’Lakes, Manitowoc Ice Machines, Lakeland Foods, Red Arrow Products and Tramontina. She has also worked at Sedgwick-James Insurance in Loss control and Crawford Healthcare Management doing work comp case management in the Green Bay area. Jennifer is personally committed to health and wellness, runs 5 and 10K races, frequents the local gym and “walks the talk” . She says “ I don’t give advice that I am not willing to follow myself!”
Kristie Brandenberg, RN, OHN
With over 25 years of nursing, Kristie has extensive experience as a nurse and a manager, most in the area of occupational health. She received her diploma from the Mounds-Midway School of Nursing in St. Paul. As an OHN, Kristie works with the entire NorthWorks team as a partner with area business and industry to promote employee health and safety. Kristie performs preplacement assessments and health surveillance, and provides safety education and trainings, and manages complex workers compensation. She works onsite at a variety of companies providing case management services. She is also certified in pulmonary function testing and travel clinics.
Kathleen Pope, RN, MPH
As an occupational health nurse, Kathleen has been employed in a variety of industries including heavy manufacturing, oil refining, and financial services. She gathered extensive on-site consulting experience while employed at two large occupational health clinics. With 25 years’ of Occupational Health Nursing experience, she has worked at local, divisional and corporate levels and was named the Minnesota Occupational Health Nurse of the Year in 2008. She earned her Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of Minnesota.
Katie Mueller, BS, Health Educator
Katie is a graduate of Winona State University with a degree in Health, Rehabilitative and Exercise Science. Past experience in physical therapy from Park Nicollet and Fairview, she brings this clinical perspective to her work as a dance coach and personal trainer. She is certified Red Cross trainer for CPR, First Aid and Blood Borne Pathogens along with competencies in audiometric, pulmonary function and drug and alcohol testing.
Val Flermoen, CMA
Val received her certification as a Medical Assistant from the Medical Institute of Minnesota over 23 years ago. Her experience in occupational medicine is broad and deep, working as the lead occupational health tech to clinic coordinator of all services and finally providing consultation (at the worksite) for the last 4 years. She has worked at Abbott Northwestern in employee health, Columbia Park Medical Group and at NorthWorks Occupational Health. She is CAOHC certified, NIOSH trained in pulmonary function testing, drug screen certified, CPR certified, and x-ray certified. Val provides many work site services including: audio testing, hearing protection training, respirator protection training, respirator surveillance programs, respirator fit testing, pulmonary function testing, blood drawing, urine collections, drug testing, after hours emergency room injury consulting, and several other medical surveillance programs to many client companies. Because of her depth of experience, she teaches a class in legal documentation for medical assistants along with competency training.
Kyanne Hallowell, CMA
Kye graduated from the Minneapolis Business College in 2001 and has been busy getting certified in additional areas since that time. She is drug screen certified, breath and saliva certified, x-ray certified, CPR certified, CAOHC certified and NIOSH trained in pulmonary function testing. Kye provides many work site services including: audio testing, hearing protection training, respirator protection training, respirator surveillance programs, respirator fit testing, pulmonary function testing, blood drawing, urine collections, drug testing, after hours emergency room injury consulting, and several other medical surveillance programs to many client companies. Some of her favorite responsibilities are making clients comfortable, providing flu shots or drawing bloods for labs. Because of her skill level, she is responsible for training new medical assistants.
Denise Weiss, MCAPM
Denise comes to NorthWorks with more than 20 years of experience in personnel and resource management. She's honed her skills and developed her knowledge from working in occupational health, personnel staffing and investments fields. Denise holds a master's level certificate in applied project management from Villanova University and has led teams through complex projects, including software implementation. She has a special interest in autism studies and support, and during free time enjoys traveling and writing music.
Lynn Ayers, MPH, BSN
Ayers has more than 25 years of administrative and healthcare experience with a variety of organizations, including, Ridgeview Medical Center, Minneapolis Health Department, Westinghouse Electric Corp., Minnesota State Planning Agency, University of Minnesota Hospitals, Head Start, Boy Scouts of America and has served on a number of boards, spoken at local and national conferences and published in a professional journal. She holds a Master of Public Health degree, a Nurse Practitioner degree, and Bachelor of Science, all from the University of Minnesota. She also has completed postgraduate studies in Occupational Health. Her hobbies include raising children, traveling anywhere, music, baking bread and farming.
Linda Hunt, RN, MSPH, COHN-S
Brings a wealth of occupational health nursing experience of over 18 years in Case Management in work comp, STD and FMLA, health and wellness, ergonomics and safety. Ms. Hunt received her Masters of Science degree in Public Health: Occupational Health Specialist from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Nursing Diploma from the Lutheran Deaconess Hospital in Minneapolis; and a Bachelor of Science degree in Health from Winona State University. She is a certified Occupational Health Nurse Specialist, and works on call for NorthWorks.
Joan Goergen, BA, Health Educator
As a Health Educator with over 30 years experience, Joan has worked in a variety of settings including a healthcare facility, numerous fitness centers and a manufacturing facility. Additional areas of experience include Respirator Fit Testing, Urine Drug Testing, Pulmonary Function Tests and Audiograms. Joan is Red Cross Trainer-Certified in CPR and First Aid.