Meet Our Vancouver Team!
Stacie Torres
FOUNDER
Stacie Torres had no idea as a little girl watching her mom take care of clients with intellectual and developmental disabilities that she would grow up to someday be co-owner of a supported living company. At 18 she started working as a Direct Support Professional and moved up the ladder of responsibility until she became a General Manager. Stacie loved working with the clients, helping them develop new skills and being involved in the community. When the opportunity presented itself in April of 2020, Stacie joined with her peer of many years, Vickie Haase, in opening Northwest Supported Living. Stacie loves the business side of the company as well as finding a great deal that will benefit employees and clients.
In her free time, Stacie enjoys spending time with her son and always stylishly dressed French Bulldog Scarlett, collecting rocks and crystals, decorating, and starting a million art projects that she never finishes.
Vickie Haase
FOUNDER
Vickie Haase launched into her career as a caregiver right after high school. From her first job in nursing homes to adult foster care working with elders she finally found her niche in supported living. Starting as a Direct Support Professional, Vickie continued to grow as a Supervisor, Manager, Program Director and finally, General Manager. In April of 2020 she along with Stacie Torres decided to grab that golden ring off the carousel of life and start their own Supported Living company, Northwest Supported Living.
With a growing business and in an everchanging world, Vickie gets satisfaction from helping her staff grow in their skills and watching them be successful. She has an open door philosophy, loves problem solving with staff and has never met a karaoke song she doesn’t know. In her free time Vickie can be found playing games with the grandkids, traveling and visiting with family and friends, checking out a new Escape room, reading, and trying new recipes.
Kathy Draper
NEW CLIENT COORDINATOR
Kathy started working as a paraprofessional for the David Douglas School District in Portland for seven years. Keeping teachers and students organized in two different classes each year. this gave her the opportunity to work at the school where her 4 children attended elementary school. When she began her career in supported living, she has fond memories of creating scrapbooks with her client. Over the years Kathy has continued to add skills and leadership experience. Her current focus is reviewing and bringing new clients into our program. Kathy was instrumental in setting up our Respite Program and is well versed in coordinating special events for clients and staff. She is a certified trainer for NWSL teaching calendaring and organization along with basic nutrition, PBSPs and IISPs. When not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband of many years, Dayne, and their family and spoiling her grandchildren. She loves the beach especially places with large crashing waves to watch.
Wendy Purcell
TRAINING COORDINATOR
Wendy has spent most of her career working with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She originally discovered her love for this while working for the public school system. Starting as a Direct Support Professional and continuing as a Supervisor and Manager, she learned of the joys and rewards of supporting these adults living in their own homes.
Wendy's current position is Staff Training Coordinator. As a state trainer, she oversees the Washington State Residential 75-hour new hire training program for NWSL.
She is also a member of the Washington State Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) Steering Committee for curriculum development and is involved with updating and rewriting the state’s Residential Services Training curriculum. Wendy’s professional motto is “Be curious and follow the plan.”
In her free time, she enjoys travel, plants/gardening, and spending time with her husband, dog, and grandbabies.
Carly Markanen
INDIVIDUAL SERVICES COORDINATOR
Carly began her spontaneous journey in the industry as a Direct Support Professional ten years ago, quickly working her way up to Supervisor, then House Manager. As our Individual Services Coordinator, she works to develop client goals and annual client training plans. Carly has an Associates in Business with a concentration in Visual Communication and enjoys utilizing her technical and creative skills in her job. Besides editing and producing client introductory videos and staff training videos/materials, she can quickly create a form in a moment’s notice and loves excel spreadsheets. Carly helps with events planning and fun activities.
She enjoys time with her husband, son, their house full of animals, gardening, site seeing, camping and spending time on the coast.
Starr Malfovan
MEDICAL COORDINATOR
Starr has a long background of being a caregiver in mental health and supported living settings from the time her family was small to today. She started as a Direct Support Professional and continued to grow in her experience and love for the field. Reaching management level, she recently became the Medical Coordinator. In her free time she enjoys shopping and cooking and anything that does not involve heights and stairs.
Michaela McVey
BEHAVIORAL SUPPORT COORDINATOR
Bio coming soon!
Thomas Bardell Jr.
LEAD TRANSPORATION SPECIALIST
Thomas Bardell is the Lead Transportation Specialist with Northwest Supported Living, Inc. He’s been with NWSL since its inception and has held several positions in the field from DSP to Supervisor. He’s also had professional driving positions including Fire Engineer to Bus Driver. Tom enjoys transporting our clients and our clients enjoy his jokes along the way. He also holds a very special position every Christmas as the jolly man in red (but don’t tell).
In Tom’s spare time he can be found pursuing the local comic book store, playing Magic with his friends, and rooting for our very own local Winterhawks from the front row. He enjoys spending time with his family finding those hidden gems in Portland and Vancouver.
Michelle Howard
SWING SHIFT MANAGER
Michelle found her niche initially as the Evening Manager, helping address any issues, concerns or emergencies for staff or clients that occur during the evening hours. She thoroughly enjoys the never-ending variety of challenges, the amazing, dedicated staff and all of the great people that we support. Michelle brings years of experience in supported living, state treatment programs, and sheltered workshops. Her early career focused on being a treatment team leader and residential program supervisor for children and adolescent mental health treatment programs. She also ran a community based home for individuals with developmental disabilities.
In her free time, she enjoys playing with her grandson, gardening, tending to her aquariums, camping, reading, spending entirely too much time on TikTok, and is, most recently, learning how to polish rocks.
Jessica Rongone
SCHEDULER
Jessica started her career path in supported living after high school. Since that time, she has worked in all aspects of caregiving from Direct Support Professional to House Supervisor. Taking her knowledge of staffing, clients, and organizing things she then transitioned to being the face and voice of the company at the front desk and scheduling. She currently works closely with all of the House Managers and does all of the staff scheduling, filling in on shifts when needed so she gets time with clients. Jessica is very involved in all aspects of training from Right Response to CPR and the Core training classes. In Jessica’s down time she enjoys the outdoors and thrifting. You can find her in the summers camping with her family and dogs. She is a huge animal lover and has a beautiful Great Dane named Jersey who thinks she is a human.