Dr. Joseph E. Awender, II

Founder and CEO

A California native with deep roots in the Chiropractic profession, Dr. Awender is a second-generation chiropractor with over 15 family members practicing chiropractic throughout North America. His family has been serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1961 and Dr. Awender has been involved locally and globally in the profession. He has served on mission trips to El Salvador, Panama, Venezuela, Mexico, and South Africa.

Served as Chairman of the Finance Committee for Life Chiropractic College-West and eventually Chairman of the Board. While working with the CEO, executive team, and Board of Regents, the leadership increased student enrollment from 275 to over 600 within four years. The financial budget increased from $9 million to over $21 million and a new state of the art chiropractic health center was developed while increasing revenue twofold. All accomplished with collaborative strategic planning.

With grandparents that emigrated from Mexico (maternal) and Germany (paternal), Dr. Awender recognized the limited resources for immigrants to obtain chiropractic care and has made it his mission to serve all walks of life with a heart for the underserved.

Pamela Karkazis

Director of Strategic Planning and Operations

As the Director of Strategic Planning and Operations, Pamela works with Leadership teams, staff, and providers of Community Health Centers to increase revenue for their clinic relieves overburdened staff and providers of their workload. 
When it comes to program development and building strategic partnerships, Pamela is motivated by carefully listening to clients, identifying the issues, and getting to the right solutions in a consistent manner. She is driven by growing organizations not only monetarily, but culturally.

After being in a car accident that left her immobile for 14 months, she is extremely passionate about health, especially Chiropractic. In her rehabilitation, she was her own advocate to access to many channels of treatments to walk again. Chiropractic was the most impactful to her recovery. Pamela truly believes EVERYONE has the right to their own optimal health with all options equally available to them.

Pamela brings in a unique blend of medical, pharmaceutical, and cutting-edge enterprise technology sales with implementation follow through. She has turned around a declining specialty pharmaceutical territory and noted for her 200% in sales. She brought in $40M for a medical diagnostics company while managing a sales team. As a Director of an innovative start-up psychiatry practice, Pamela increased referrals by 49% the first year by forming strong ties with large Bay Area institutions.

In her early career, working for the State of New Mexico, as a Pathology Assistant, where she performed high profile criminal cases.  She still works at SF General morgue as needed, performing autopsies and training Pathology residents. Working with families and helping them through the bereavement process has given her exposure to all elements of life.

Pamela holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and an Area of Focus in Neuropsychology from U.C. San Diego. She completed Fellowship training in Forensic Pathology through the University of New Mexico.