Our Team
Lisa D’Alessio, LPC | Co-Founder/Executive & Clinical Director
Lisa is a founding Board Member of HEAL, a Licensed Professional Counselor and an Eagala Certified Mental Health Specialist. She also serves as the Executive and Clinical Director of HEAL. Lisa has been practicing as a therapist for 15 years and has extensive experience in crisis intervention, risk assessment, domestic violence and the treatment of co-occurring disorders, PTSD and MST.
She received her BA from Bates College in 2003 with a dual major in Anthropology and American Cultural Studies and her MA in Community Counseling from Marymount University in 2008. Lisa grew up riding horses and reconnected with the beauty of working with equines during grad school when she met Autumn and resumed riding lessons.
Lisa loves conducting assessments and introducing individuals to the power of equine therapy. She also spends a lot of time in the community building relationships and networking with Veteran organizations.
Autumn Rae | Equine Specialist & Co-Founder
Autumn has been working with high level competition horses and rescue horses for a lifetime. She grew up apprenticing with natural horsemanship guru, Durlene Meck. She has gone on to train in the United States and Germany with Olympic greats in the sport of eventing. She also spent many years working as a facilitator and consultant in team and personal development programs, primarily facilitating ropes courses and other outdoor adventure activities. As Autumn began to provide private riding lessons, she noticed that working with horses gave her clientele many of the same personal growth and learning opportunities that the outdoor adventure programs had, often, with even more positive results.
In 2009, Autumn began focusing on established programs in Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) and Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) at Prescott College in Arizona. The riding and personal growth programs that she has conducted mirrored growing evidence from programs around the world showing that EAL and EAP can offer many benefits both to individuals and to society.
Sergio Cueto, LMFT
Sergio has over 20 years’ experience in social services/private practice as a bi-lingual (Spanish/English) marriage and family therapist working with a variety of individuals, children, families and couples from different backgrounds presenting issues ranging from domestic violence and substance abuse and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), to school and family issues. He focuses on short-term, solution-oriented therapy.
After receiving his Masters in Family and Child Development with clinical in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Virginia Tech, Sergio obtained his LMFT in 2006. He started working with HEAL in 2020 and received his Eagala certification after joining the team.
Sergio lives in Warrenton with his wife and family and is a professional fire fighter for a local jurisdiction.
Devenie Cloran is a long standing supporter of HEAL and an Eagala certified equine specialist. She is software and cloud engineer day by stressful day. Horses are her vehicle for achieving work life balance. With 40 years of experience as an equestrian, she enjoys and understands the power, joy and healing of simply being in the presence of horses. Devenie identifies with HEAL’s first responder community because she has served as an EMT-Intermediate for a volunteer rescue squad in the past. She has also been an outdoor emergency care technician for National Ski Patrol and she was raised by a Lt. in the Massachusetts State Police. Her Friesian gelding Freark also enjoys serving HEAL’s client community as a session horse where he is beloved for his gentle, calm and kind spirit.
Devenie Cloran | Equine Specialist
Mary has been involved in riding and working around horses all of her life. From owning her first Quarter Horse in middle school to working with her eventer daughter Amanda, Mary has seen the power of horses. Mary knows that horses make her happy, they heal her, and she knows that they can do the same for others. Mary’s goal for her career as an Eagala certified Equine Specialist is to facilitate that process through Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP). With EAP Mary uses her lifelong knowledge and passion for horses to assist people in healing.
Prior to a career as an Equine Specialist, Mary co-founded Tenacity Solutions Incorporated in 2003. Under her leadership Tenacity Solutions grew from a small IT startup to a successful mid-tier information technology firm that was actively acquired by Computer Science Corporation in the summer of 2014.
Mary believes that combining her entrepreneurial spirit with her corporate and academic backgrounds uniquely qualifies her to help build and grow the HEAL foundation.
Mary Fox | Equine Specialist & Co-Founder
Terese Colling | Board President & Co-Founder
Terese has lobbied Congress and the Administration for over 25 years on behalf of the Paper Recycling Coalition on issues such as taxation, energy, international trade, recycling, and the environment establishing bipartisan relationships in the House and the Senate.
In the shadow of the Capitol and the Pentagon she witnessed the impacts of war, seeing young men and women returning to the DC area with both visible and hidden wounds. Determined to do her part to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she helped found and create HEAL and its facilities.
TC is an avid equestrian, understands the healing power of horses, saying, “the veteran population is terribly under served when it comes to their ability to deal with PTSD—they don’t want to sit in an office an talk to a therapist—but when you get them out moving and interacting with the horses, a connection is made that transcends typical therapies. Simply put, it works and we are privileged to serve this community.”
Dennis Hottell | Board Treasurer & Co-Founder
Dennis, Founder of Hottell Family Law Group, has focused his practice on Matrimonial and Family Law for more than 37 years. Dennis is a keen negotiator who routinely crafts complex settlements involving high-stakes financial assets as well as multifaceted interstate/international custody issues. Dennis is distinguished as a Certified Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), a Fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (IAML), and has served as the President of the Virginia Chapter of the AAML. Throughout his legal career he has provided a substantial amount of pro-bono legal work, earning the honor of Fairfax Bar Association’s “Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year”, an achievement generally attained only by large law firms.
Dennis shares his wife’s passion for making a difference in the lives of others, he often asks the question, if not now, when? In his role as treasurer he has gone above and beyond his duties for the HEAL Foundation. He has worked to fund and develop the extensive physical infrastructure necessary to carry out the services the veterans and families will receive.
Dennis looks forward to continuing his work with HEAL, as the foundation works to make a difference in the lives of others.
