Our Story "The Why"
Nothing grips the heart more than a parent afraid of losing their children, especially from something that's entirely avoidable. When our teenage sons lost close friends to drug overdoses, we struggled with how to support and protect them. Our 6 decade combined experiences in healthcare and specialized therapies has helped us recognize that no illness is more misunderstood and poorly treated than addictions. Early identification is key to prevention and recovery. Yet, there's a gaping hole in how people are being assessed and treated compared to other chronic illnesses. Compris is a culmination of our life's work and shared vision to reach as many people as possible with our online tool. We believe Compris can change the conversation from stigma to inclusion—turning substance misuse behaviors into opportunities to save lives. We hope it helps many people.
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Joyce Ann & Calvin McGinn
Meet The Founders
Calvin McGinn PhD, LMFT, RN
Co-Founder / Chief Medical Officer (CMO) / Principal Researcher
Calvin McGinn, PhD, LMFT, RN, is the co-founder of Compris, Inc., and an ER Care Manager for AdvocateAurora Health. His 40-year professional career in biopsychosocial medicine includes significant contributions to both the medical and behavioral science community. He holds undergraduate degrees in Theology and Nursing, and both master’s and doctoral degrees in Marital and Family Therapy. Calvin served as Director of Behavioral Sciences, Hinsdale Family Practice Residency, Co-Chair of the National Forum for the Behavioral Sciences in Family Medicine, and State Trainer for NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness). While program director at a Chicago MAT substance treatment program in 2016, he began researching the stigma-based contrasts in managing those with brain illnesses vs every other chronic condition. His expertise as a recovery coach and program director led to co-founding Compris, an evidence-based path that integrates what we already know about SUD as a chronic, risk-stratified, illness into a new online assessment, prevention, wellness, referral and treatment paradigm. Calvin has spoken locally and internationally on behavioral health topics such as: • addiction and recovery • chronic illness management • therapeutic interventions for families and individuals • risk and resilience With Compris he and his co-founder, Joyce Ann McGinn bring a solution to the deadliest epidemic in American history by prioritizing a chronic (vs. acute) illness perspective to address a lifelong (vs. short term) condition. We know the first step–improved assessment—will bring improved answers to resolving it.
Meet Our Experts
Nicole Spiegel-Gotsch MA
Strategic Advising Consultant
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Nicole Spiegel-Gotsch is the Founder & CEO of Mavyn, a marketing strategy consultancy that helps founders build, launch and grow their businesses. She brings a mix of creative and business skills to the table that comes from 20+ years working with startups, small businesses, and Fortune 500 clients alike. Nicole’s background is multidisciplinary, spanning marketing, branding, content, and product. She holds a Master's degree in Graphic Communications Management & Technology from NYU. Among Nicole’s many interests are communication, digital health, startups, and entrepreneurship.
Nicole joins Compris as their Strategic Advising Consultant.
Joyce Ann McGinn OTR/L, GCFP
Co-Founder / CEO/COO
Joyce Ann McGInn, BS, OTR/L, GCFP Compris’ co-founder, has spent 25 years dedicated to her integrated healing practice. Her formal training in Occupational Therapy, the Feldenkrais Method, and neuro-reflexive integration (MNRI) bring a unique perspective and empathy for those with chronic pain, PTSD, and developmental delays. Addictions remove the capacity to make healthy choices. To the extent that the opioid crisis is connected to poor management of chronic pain and related illnesses, including PTSD, Joyce's integrated healing methods have found increasing relevance. At each step of her career, the role of neuroplasticity in restoring balance has become more fundamental to the process of sustained, healthy, whole person change. Joyce believes that in order to achieve balance in living, there must be an equilibrium between our habits, reflexes and choices. Joyce has researched the challenges surrounding the opioid crisis, and currently authors a blog to raise awareness of the comprehensive addiction care needs in the workplace and create avenues to reach people by creating partnerships with employee benefits wellness programs and providers.
Scott Norman
Commercialization Advising Consultant
Scott joined us in July 2023 as Commercializaton Advising Consultant. As a sales leader with 25 years of operational success, results, and experience, he looks forward to making Compris the most trusted and widely used addiction assessment and care measurement platform. Scott is a CCO, CEO, Board Director, Investor, and Senior Partner serving public and private companies globally in digital health, behavioral health & addiction treatment, prescription and nonprescription digital therapeutics , and specialty pharmaceuticals. Scott holds degrees in both chemistry and biology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. His career started in speciality polymer chemistry and then transitioned into pharmaceuticals sales and leadership, with success and awards at Novartis, Pfizer, Indivior, and most recently Pear Therapeutics. In 2022, Scott and his wife Kellie, established Earth Solutions Global Foundation, as a non-profit organization focusing on supporting organizations rooted in driving change in behavioral health, addiction treatment, domestic violence, and developmental disabilities.
The Technology
Based on decades of research, we pulled the best and most effective tools together to create the most accurate prediction, prevention guidance, and measurable outcomes.
Compris (French, Com·pree, “understood”) is the only substance addiction assessment available today that offers comprehensive addiction diagnostics and risk stratification consistent with a chronic illness treatment paradigm. Its 13,000 machine learning algorithms translate evidence-based lifetime risk and resilience factors, DSM-5 and HSI illness diagnostics, motivation, denial, and self-reported readiness, into the first complete prevention, treatment, and long-term addiction management guide.
Ray Baker MD, FCFPC, FASAM, ABAM
Medical Education and Industry Consultant
Dr. Baker is an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine. He began his career as a family practice physician, then specialized in Addiction Medicine, developing the undergraduate Addiction Medicine curriculum at the University of British Columbia and serving for many years as a consultant in Occupational Addiction Medicine. On behalf of the Railway Association of Canada, Dr. Baker developed the rules for medical fitness for Canadian safety-critical railway workers with substance use disorders. In 2003 he won the American Association for Treatment of Opioid Dependence Dole-Nyswander award. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Addictive Diseases. Since 2016 he has assisted organizations in their transition towards more integrated recovery-oriented care. It is his goal to facilitate creation of people centred community resources that maximize the conditions essential for sustainable recovery and wellbeing for people affected by substance use and mental health problems. As a member of Canada's CCSA National Recovery Research Expert Advisory committee, Ray helped design and interpret Canada's 2017 Life in Recovery Survey. In 2018 Dr. Baker trained as a recovery coach and then as a recovery coach trainer with CCAR, the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery. He served as an expert consultant to Alberta's Mental Health and Addiction Advisory Committee, assisting the province's transition to a Recovery Oriented System of Care. In 2022 he published Recovery Coaching Knowledge and Skills, a training manual currently in use by several organizations in training over 200 recovery coaches. In 2022, the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine awarded Dr. Ray Baker their prestigious lifetime achievement award. Upon learning about Compris’ efforts to bring chronic illness parity to addiction medicine and the recovery journey, he generously agreed to join the Compris team as medical education and industry consultant.