2019 Conference

BA from Howard U attended HU Grad School in Student Personnel Administration. He also holds a L.P.C. from D.C. The standard BIO is available upon request.

Wendell Omari Atkinson was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio where he became a young entrepreneur at the age of 24, as the CEO to his own facilities management and property restoration corporation. Prior to starting his firm Mr. Atkinson studied Political Science at the prestigious Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. Mr. Atkinson eventually relocated eventually moving on to greater opportunities in Washington, DC. Mr. Atkinson completed his Master’s in Business with a concentration on Acquisition at Bellevue University. Once he moved to Washington, Mr. Atkinson pursued a career in contracting and procurement. His career as a contracting professional was propelled at the Housing and Urban Development department where Mr. Atkinson worked on the Multifamily and Healthcare Loan Sale program, netting a total of $670,039,000.00 during his tenure with the agency. Mr. Atkinson moved on to become the Branch Chief at the General Services Administration, Public Building Services, Acquisition Management Division which was responsible for the central construction activity of GSA Region 11, the National Capitol Region (NCR) managing their portfolio of IDIQ construction contracts, all before the age of 33. While serving as Branch Chief Mr. Atkinson was detailed for a special assignment to serve as the Contracting Officer for the Ronald Reagan Building (RRB) the largest federally owned building in America with both federal agencies and private companies as tenants, during that assignment Mr. Atkinson wrote a Contracting Officer’s Final Determination resulting in the reimbursement of over $3,000,000.00 to the federal government for erroneous invoicing by the property management firm of the RRB. Mr. Atkinson was eventually recruited as by the Department of Commerce as the Deputy Director in the Commerce Acquisition Solutions Division, where he would go on to negotiate Personal Services Contracts in support of establishing sovereign governments in developing nations during the Obama Administration. Mr. Atkinson currently serves as the Chief Contracting Officer of Acquisition Systems for the District of Columbia government, Office of Contracting and Procurement. In this role he is responsible for policy, governance, and maintenance of the District’s procurement system. That system is responsible for over $5 billion dollars in transactions annually. Mr. Atkinson also established and serves as the Director of the District of Columbia’s Procurement Center of Excellence (PCOE). The PCOE was created to identify and implement the best practices within state, local, and federal government procurement to the District of Columbia. Mr. Atkinson is the proud father of five children. Two of whom are currently receiving assistance through college through the DC TAG program.

Christina Carter joined the Tenet Talent Management Team as a Director of Executive Recruitment in 2013 with Tenet’s acquisition of Vanguard Health Systems, where she had held a similar position since 2010. Initially, she was a member of an integrated team from both companies tasked to evaluate and realign the merged organization’s executive talent strategy. Currently, she is responsible for the full life cycle recruitment process for senior operations, finance, legal, and clinical corporate executives, as well as, the recruitment of the C-suite leadership in the company’s 79 acute care hospitals and integrated healthcare delivery systems across the country. From 2007-2009, Christina was a Principal with a national retained executive search firm specializing in the placement of senior operational and clinical healthcare executives in integrated healthcare delivery systems nationally.

Christina brings a wealth of professional experience to Tenet’s executive recruitment team. During her career as an attorney, Christina practiced law with several national law firms, where she specialized in telecommunications and healthcare regulatory policy along with complex corporate and financial transactional matters. Additionally, Christina has held senior staff positions on numerous Presidential campaigns and worked as an Economist for the Under Secretary of Treasury specializing in business tax issues. She has co-authored a book titled “Consumption Taxes Promises and Problems” and published several articles on federal tax and fiscal policy issues.

Christina received a JD from the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association and the Bar of the DC Court of Appeals. Additionally, she holds a BA in Economics and Political Science with Masters coursework in Economics from the Paul School of Business at the University of New Hampshire.