Mission & Leadership

William Hathaway, MD, has spent more than two decades working to improve health across Western North Carolina as a MAHEC board member, chief medical officer for the region’s largest hospital system, a practicing cardiologist, and now as our chief executive officer. In all of these roles, Dr. Hathaway’s commitment to equity and improving access to healthcare has been a principle that has guided his health transformation efforts. Dr. Hathaway has championed the expansion of MAHEC’s graduate medical education programs and hospital-based services to ensure we are developing the healthcare workforce necessary to promote the well-being of all those living in our region including our rural and under-resourced communities.

Dr. Hathaway is keenly aware that individual and community health are influenced by an array of social, economic, and environmental factors. He has devoted much of his professional and personal time to addressing these social determinants of health by developing robust community partnerships and serving on a variety of regional boards including the United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County, YMCA of Western North Carolina, and the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County.

A longtime supporter of MAHEC, Dr. Hathaway is proud of MAHEC’s commitment to patient care, serving the underserved, and educating the next generation of healthcare workers. He is grateful for the opportunity to guide our not-for-profit’s efforts to meaningfully improve the health and wellness of all those who live and work in Western North Carolina.

Jeff Pigg brings 12 years of experience in healthcare, specifically practice operations, to MAHEC. He has served as a CEO, CFO, Practice Administrator, and Executive Director in addition to being a MAHEC Board Member and chair of the finance committee. Jeff will lead MAHEC's operations in the clinical arena.

Zach Levin, CPA, is a lover of information and analysis. He is a certified public account who isn’t afraid to balance a budget and takes seriously his responsibility to manage MAHEC’s assets and obligations to deliver maximum value to our region. As MAHEC’s chief financial officer, Zach ensures our non-profit is fiscally responsible and fully accountable to granting agencies, funders, partners, our employees, and community members. With Zach at the helm, you can be sure that investments in MAHEC are investments in Western North Carolina’s long-term health.

A North Carolina native, Zach graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Appalachian State University and has called Asheville home since 2009.

Anne McClintic, MS, is honored to serve as the Chief of Talent Management. Drawn to both the human-centered and strategic elements of workplace design, she sees her role as first and foremost “creating an environment in which all can do their very best." With over twenty years of experience in human resources and talent/organizational development, mostly in healthcare, she’s passionate about attracting, retaining and developing the key talent needed to serve MAHEC’s mission through a strengths-based approach. A native of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Anne has been privileged to call WNC home for over twenty years.

Ameena Batada, DrPH, MPH, is a professor of Health and Wellness at UNC Asheville. Dr. Batada facilitates courses on community health, health equity and justice, health communication, and related topics. Dr. Batada's research activities include working with community partners and students to better understand the impact of their health and education programs and conducting research to support policy advocacy pertaining to a range of social drivers of health. She also is the 2021-2024 faculty fellow with the Key Center for Community Engaged Learning at UNCA. Prior to coming to Asheville, Dr. Batada was the director of education, research, and outreach with Sesame Workshop India in New Delhi, and before that she worked as an advocate for national school nutrition standards and limits on marketing junk food to children with the Center for Science in the Public Interest . Dr. Batada's DrPH is in Population and Family Health Sciences with a certificate in Health Communication from Johns Hopkins University and her MPH is in Maternal and Child Health with a certificate in International Health from UNC Chapel Hill. You can learn more about Dr. Batada on her UNCA profile page.

Steve Buie, MD, has been a leader in expanding access to quality mental healthcare in Western North Carolina for decades. A skilled psychiatrist, Dr. Buie has made it his mission to train physicians who can meet the mental health needs of our region, which has a shortage of mental health professionals and higher rates of depression, suicide, and substance use disorders.

As Chair of MAHEC’s Department of Psychiatry, he guides a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral health professionals, school counselors, and peer support specialists in caring for patients of all ages with a range of mental health needs. As director of MAHEC’s psychiatry residency and fellowship programs, he is committed to training well-rounded psychiatrists who can work with rural, underserved populations and provide expert consultation in primary care settings. He is well-qualified for these roles and has been honored for his leadership as a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Alumnus of the UNC School of Medicine, where he is an adjunct associate professor. Dr. Buie currently serves as the president of the North Carolina Psychiatric Foundation and is a past president of the North Carolina Psychiatric Association.

Beth Buys, MD, is a visionary leader and educator who is passionate about transforming obstetric and gynecologic health and, in the process, improving the health of entire families, communities, and future generations. As chair of MAHEC’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Buys leads a multidisciplinary team that includes maternal-fetal medicine specialists, ob/gyn physicians, perinatal addiction and behavioral health specialists, certified nurse midwives, nurse practitioners, doulas, pregnancy care managers, and community partners who provide wraparound support to eliminate health inequities and address social determinants of health. Dr. Buys also works with our ob/gyn residency program and research initiatives to advance best practices and expand the rural healthcare workforce.

Dr. Buys is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and an oral board examiner with the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is also a graduate of MAHEC’s ob/gyn residency program. She has called Asheville home since 1999.

Francisco Castelblanco, DNP, RN, serves as director of our Mountain AHEC and chair of the Department of Continuing Professional Development at UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC. In his role as AHEC director, he works closely with MAHEC’s CEO and president and the NC AHEC Program Office to align regional programs with statewide initiatives for maximum impact. As departmental chair, Dr. Castelblanco guides a talented team of medical faculty and program planners in the delivery of more than 1,000 educational programs for approximately 10,000 health professionals across the state each year.

A cardiac nurse by training and adjunct professor for UNC’s School of Nursing, Dr. Castelblanco knows how critical ongoing education is for delivering the highest quality patient care. He also understands the importance of equitable care, and he has devoted much of his career to advancing health equity through educational programming, minority youth career mentoring, and community service on boards that have included Buncombe County Health and Human Services, Asheville-Buncombe Institute of Parity Achievement, Center for Diversity Education at UNC Asheville, Asheville Latin Americans for Achieving Success, Pisgah Legal Services, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, and Thrive.

Bryan Hodge, DO, works each day to ensure MAHEC is making a positive difference in the community. As chair of the Department of Community and Public Health at UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC, Dr. Hodge leads initiatives to expand community outreach, build pathways that support equitable access to health careers, and train public health leaders through the school of public health. A former National Health Service Corps Scholar, he has committed his career to providing high-quality relational care and serving his community. He continues to practice and teach family medicine with the Hendersonville Rural Family Medicine Residency Program. Dr. Hodge’s special interests include creating new models of care delivery, rural workforce development, and interdisciplinary health professions training. He believes that community health transformation requires a strong commitment to community engagement, collaboration, and innovation.

Dr. Hodge is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. He helps residency programs across the country achieve educational and clinical excellence through his role as a Residency Practice Solutions consultant for the American Academy of Family Practice.

Katherine Jowers, DDS understands the chasm that exists between achieving oral health and the social, economic, educational, and systemic barriers that stand in the way of achieving it. As Chair of MAHEC’s Department of Dentistry and Oral Health, she heads clinical care and dental health profession education, as well as outreach and interprofessional initiatives that expand access to oral health education and care. She is also a UNC professor and the director of the UNC Adams Rural Oral Health and Wellness (AROW) Scholars, an innovative UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC program that provides educational and clinical care opportunities for UNC dental students who intend to establish practice in underserved NC communities.

Dr. Jowers is a Western North Carolina native, an honors graduate of the UNC Adams School of Dentistry, and a long-time advocate for oral health in our region. In her two decades in WNC, she has created nationally recognized hospital- and community-based oral health programs. She is committed to expanding MAHEC’s oral health initiatives in new and exciting directions.

Mollie Ashe Scott, PharmD, BCACP, CPP, FASHP, is chair of the Department of Pharmacotherapy at UNC Health Sciences at MAHEC and regional associate dean for UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, where she oversees the school’s Asheville campus. Dr. Scott is also a practicing clinical pharmacist who is responsible for the initial development of MAHEC’s ambulatory care pharmacy services and residency programs. Dr. Scott recognizes the key role clinical pharmacists play in improving health outcomes, and she ensures MAHEC pharmacists and pharmacy students are engaged in interprofessional care teams and research projects. Her clinical interests include geriatrics and women’s and rural health. She is committed to training clinical pharmacists who can develop sustainable ambulatory care services and demonstrate their value for improving the quality of patient care and reducing healthcare costs.

Dr. Scott is a nationally recognized pharmacotherapy educator and leader who has been named a fellow by the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) for her work to advance the profession. She currently serves as a task force chair for the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists, and she is a former chair of ASHP’s Section of Ambulatory Care Practitioners.

As assistant director of the UNC Asheville-Gillings MPH Program, Sarah teaches leadership and place-based health theory and implementation and develops practicum and culminating experience opportunities for Asheville MPH students. For over twenty-five years, Sarah has worked with broad-based Healthy Carolinians partnerships, health departments, federally qualified health centers, and medical practices to promote community health and develop the rural health workforce in Western North Carolina (WNC) and West Virginia. As a NC DHHS consultant with the Division of Public Health, she helped WNC health departments and Healthy Carolinians partnerships assess and address community health priorities. She also developed school-based health centers, interprofessional initiatives to improve geriatric care, and community campaigns to promote heart disease management and long acting reversible contraception. Her research and practice interests lie in promoting oral health, interprofessional education, and helping clinicians engage communities to promote evidence-based care. She graduated from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health with an MPH in health behavior/ health education and Harvard University with a BA in social anthropology and women’s studies.

Sandy Whitlock, MD, has been a palliative care physician at Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC since 2015. She received her medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Following internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago, she completed the Harvard Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship.

After fellowship, she practiced as a palliative medicine attending at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and served as an Instructor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. While at MGH, Dr. Whitlock was active in teaching medical students, residents, and fellows. During her time in Boston, she also completed the Harvard Medical Ethics Fellowship.

Dr. Whitlock currently serves as the Assistant Program Director for the Asheville Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship and the Associate Program Director for the UNC School of Medicine Asheville Campus. She remains active in teaching learners at all levels. She is particularly interested in teaching advanced communication skills.

Sandy has loved living in Asheville with her husband and three kids. She loves running and gardening.