FRAN LESSANS, President & CEO As founder, president and CEO of Passport Health, Fran brings over 30 years of medical and management experience to Passport Health. Before founding Passport Health, Fran worked in a variety of clinical settings as a registered nurse, educator and health care administrator. Fran's business acumen is known in the community, as she has successfully turned multiple troubled organizations into profitable ventures. In 2005 she was awarded the Innovator of the Year award by the Maryland Department of Business & Economic Development and in 2006 won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Maryland region.

It was during her tenure as director of a university based health service where Fran first came up with the idea for a comprehensive, client focused, full-service medical travel service.

Fran often referred students to large area hospitals for immunizations prior to an international trip. Students returned from their hospital visit complaining about the cost and knowing little about the immunizations they had received or steps necessary to stay healthy. It was not easy finding the answers to their questions, as the CDC offered only prerecorded messages via long distance phone service, which is often six or more months behind, and few physicians know much about travel medicine. Local health departments offered limited, misleading and often wrong information. Fran began developing educational materials to help students understand how diseases were transmitted and discussed problems that students might encounter while traveling. Fran's reputation quickly grew, as students and faculty referred family and friends for travel counseling and immunizations.

In 1994 Fran took her service to a hospital affiliated ambulatory care practice in Baltimore. Satellite locations were added to circle the Baltimore beltway. Since that time, over 60 franchise territories have been added with multiple sites in each territory bringing the total number of offices over 160. Today Passport Health^® delivers a quality, comprehensive service to corporate and leisure travelers across the country.

The business has continued to flourish with new affiliates, added capabilities and expanded services. A new area of business emerged after 9/11--Passport Health^® was called upon to deliver antibiotics and Anthrax vaccine to postal and tabloid workers on the east coast from New Jersey to Florida. Passport Health^® now provides immunizations for travel, school, wellness, immigration and naturalization, bio-defense, disaster response, military readiness and clinical trials. Fran's reputation as an expert in immunizations grew to the point where both U.S. and foreign governments have called upon her to develop training programs and provide a call center for expert advice on all aspects of immunizations.

Fran has published and lectured extensively throughout the country to health departments, foreign governments and public and private institutions and organizations about immunizations for travel and bio-terrorism. She is a member of the International Society of Travel Medicine, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and has completed postgraduate course work in adventure and tropical travel medicine. Fran is GCP (Good Clinical Practice) certified and is currently conducting travel related research. She also is working with the Department of Defense and has done clinical research on behalf of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She has served on pharmaceutical Advisory Boards including Merck's Vaccine Division, Sanofi Pasteur, Glaxo SmithKline and iJET, the first travel intelligence Internet Company.

Fran holds a B.S.N. degree from the University of Maryland, School of Nursing and a master's degree from the same institution where she majored in public health and administration. She lives in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, with her husband who is the senior partner in a county law firm and corporate council for Passport Health^®. Their two grown children include an Urologist son practicing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and an Architect daughter practicing in New Orleans, Louisiana.

MARTIN B. LESSANS, General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer Martin B. Lessans has been General Counsel, Chief Financial Officer and the Board Secretary/Treasurer of Passport Health® since it's founding. As a member of the Maryland Bar, he has been an attorney since 1970 and has been a partner with the same law firm, Lessans, Praley & McCormick, P.A. (formerly known as Lessans & Tate), since 1978, where he is a senior partner.

Since 1980, Lessans has been active in the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland, the disciplinary system handling complaints against attorneys and governed by the Maryland Rules of Procedure adopted by the Court of Appeals (Maryland's highest court). He has served on numerous Inquiry and Peer Review Panels, chairing most panels. Lessans has served on the Review Board of the AGC from 1988-1990 and was appointed by the Court of Appeals to serve on the AGC Governing Commission from 1990 to 1997 where he was Vice Chair from 1992 to 1997.

Lessans' bar association activities have included the presidency of the Anne Arundel Bar Association as well as the Paca/Brent Inn/American Inns of Court where he was also Master of the Bench. He has also sat on the Board of Governors for the Maryland State Bar Association and is a member of the Business Law Section and Forum on Franchising of the American Bar Association.

Lessans has retained an attorney rating of "AV" (highest rating) from Martindale-Hubbell and holds a J.D. from the University of Baltimore Law School. 

CAROL L. DE ROSA, Senior V.P., Clinical Svcs/ Corporate Development Carol joined the Passport Health team full time in 2000 as the Executive Director and Corporate Trainer. Her responsibilities included the training of all clinical staff in the local and national network. She is responsible for new franchise sales, national site surveys, quality assurance of clinical staff / protocols, and introduction of new services and product lines. She has worked to develop and strengthen partnerships in private industry, the CDC, pharmaceutical companies and DOD.

In December of 2006, she assumed the duties of Senior VP of Operations and Corporate Development. She has been an integral part of the leadership and development of the executive team – her focus being to promote the uniquely positioned mission of this company to consistently deliver quality care. As an educator she is a frequent contributor of articles to travel agencies, journals, and the Passport Health website.

Her accomplishments include spearheading the post 911 Anthrax response under CDC protocol. Additionally she and her team in Maryland have responded to the needs of military reservists mobilized on short notice during the Mid East missions. In 2002, she coordinated the training of medical staff at the Department of Defense in the administration of Smallpox at the Arlington Preparedness Conference. Working closely with the CEO of Passport Health, Fran Lessans, she responded to calls for training the Health Ministry of Singapore in Smallpox administration during their visit to the U.S. As part of the corporate nursing team in Baltimore, she and the clinical team maintain a 24 hr. DoD vaccine hotline. She has assumed the role of coordinator and oversight in clinical trials with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health the Vaccine Healthcare Center of Walter Reed among others.

Prior to working with the Passport Health team, Carol worked in hospital settings in the emergency rooms in New York City, public health in Philadelphia, and in home health and child abuse forensics in Maryland where she came to live with her husband and three sons in 1986. While in Massachusetts, she was recognized by the state Legislature for her work on children’s health issues; work that would later translate to advocacy work on the hill with the National Military Family Association in D.C. She is GCP certified and is a member of Maryland Association of Nurse Executives, International Society of Travel Medicine and Optimist International. Her published articles have appeared in Home Health Review, Nursing Spectrum, Bottom Line and the DHH publication of the Centers for Substance Abuse and Treatment.

Carol came to the U.S. as a young child. She attended St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing for her nursing diploma and completed a degree in Human Resource Management with a minor in International Business at American International College in Springfield Massachusetts. She began work on a Masters at the University of Massachusetts in Public Health when her husband entered the Air Force as a Flight Surgeon at Andrews Air Force Base in D.C. and the family moved to Maryland.

ALEXANDER LUPENKO, Corporate Medical Director Alexander Lupenko, M.D., C.M.M., is the national medical advisor for Passport Health. He joined the team in 2005 and has been serving the health needs of international travelers as the owner of Passport Health in New York City and Long Island. In addition to his duties as Medical Director and owner, he has also been instrumental in leading the team of programmers and IT specialists in the development of PASSageware, the electronic medical records (EMR) program.

Dr. Lupenko, born and raised in New York City, received his Bachelors in Science in Biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1978. He continued his studies to receive his medical degree through Stony Brook University’s medical exchange program with the Nicholas Kopernicus Medical Academy in Krakow, Poland.

He completed his internal medicine residency at the Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn & Queens. During this time, he also had training at St. John’s Hospital in Forest Hills, Mary Immaculate Hospital, Jamaica, and St. Mary’s Hospital in Bedford Stuyvesant.

After completing his fellowship in infectious diseases at The Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn in 1989, he joined the Queens-Long Island Medical Group, P.C. It is here that Dr. Lupenko served on the Board of Directors of Queens-Long Island Medical, and he served as Chairman for the Quality Improvement Committee in the Nassau-Queens Division as well. Part of his history also includes working in the Department of Internal Medicine at both the North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and in Syosset. In Syosset, he also served as the Chairman for the Infection Control Committee.

Dr. Lupenko is also affiliated with the International Society of Travel Medicine and the American Society of Travel Medicine and Hygiene. When he is not in the office, he enjoys taking his camera around to experiment with photography, and his incredible pictures demonstrate his talent. His other interests include skiing, scuba diving, travelling, and boating, but most of all he values spending time with his two sons.

JORGE EDUARDO CASTILLO, Director, Business Development & Marketing Mr. Castillo was recruited by Passport Health to assist in organizing, implementing, and controlling Passport Health's National Marketing Strategy initiative. Mr. Castillo works very closely with the executive team and all franchise owners and their staff. He is involved in all facets of marketing design and development.

FELIKS BARDAKH, IT Director Feliks joined Passport Health in October of 2007 to manage development and program in-house applications for client scheduling, client records keeping, creation of marketing reports, and moving all paper based processes to a paperless platform. He works very closely with the senior programmer, director of business development and software users in the full life cycle of software development.

Prior to joining Passport Health, Feliks worked with reservation and property management software at Micros Systems. He implemented software fixes, trained users and provided technical support to franchise hotel owners who were using the software developed Micros Systems.

Feliks Bardakh has also successfully worked with many small business owners, lawyers and financial planners to create a web presence for them. He developed web sites and optimized them for the highest possible rankings in search engines.

Mr. Bardakh was born in Kyiv, Ukraine where he lived for 15 years before coming to the United States and has lived in Maryland since. He holds a B.S degree in Computer Science from Towson University in MD and an M.B.A. from University of Phoenix with a specialization in Technology Management.

KATIE WATERHOUSE, Competitive Intelligence & Web Manager Katie Waterhouse joined Passport Health in October of 2007. In her role as Competitive Intelligence and Web Manager she is responsible for updating Passport Health's national website as well as managing and approving all updates for local franchise sites. Miss. Waterhouse supports the clinical staff in gathering and disseminating critical clinical intelligence and contributes to the IT team by providing relevant industry information to adapt websites and blogs for social media optimization.

Miss. Waterhouse attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she graduated with honors and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with a major in Graphic Design and a Minor in Art History.

Miss. Waterhouse enjoys reading, painting, photography, listening to live music and dancing. Her thirst for knowledge, witty disposition and positive attitude are a perfect addition to the Passport Health Team.

GUILLERMO GIRALDO, National Sales Manager Guillermo Giraldo joined Passport Health in July of 2009. As the National Sales Manager, his duties include managing accounts, obtaining new business and lending support to Passport Health sales teams locally and nationally. His top priority is to set national and local goals and implement a solid infrastructure to help Passport Health grow as a company.

Mr. Giraldo brings over 8 years of experience in sales, sales management, marketing, and training. As account executive for various companies over the years, he has honed his skills delivering sales, negotiation, leadership, and customer service for his employers. Prior to joining Passport Health, he worked as a Sr. Account Executive for Global Pharmaceutical sourcing. Through hard work and dedication, he became one of the top producers at GPS, specializing in selling a wide variety of pharmaceutical products.

Mr. Giraldo is a native of Cali, Colombia S.A. moving to the USA as a young child he has now become a Baltimore local with strong ties to the community. A Washington College alum with a degree in Sociology, he is a member of the 1998 Men’s Lacrosse National Championship team. He is very excited to call Passport Health his home for many years to come.

SANTOSH NARAYANKAR, Junior Programmer Santosh Narayankar became a part of Passport Health in April of 2010. As a Junior Programmer he works closely with the IT Director, Senior Programmer, Director of Business Development & Marketing and the software users. Mr. Narayankar is a part of the IT team where he is responsible for software development.

Santosh Narayankar attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) where he completed his Master’s Degree in Information Systems and was also a part of the Office of Information Technology – Business Systems in developing and testing the various application used by the university. He has also developed an iPhone application for the Library @ UMBC and has been a part of a research team whose primary motive was to understand users’ behavior online.

Mr. Narayankar was born in Pune, India but lived in Belgaum for 16 years; he then moved to the US and has lived in Baltimore, Maryland. He completed his Bachelors Degree (B.E) in Electronics and Communications from Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum after which he moved on to work with Keane India as a software developer.

Mr. Narayankar enjoys his free time and loves traveling, visiting new places, hanging out with friends and also playing tennis & cricket. He is a very motivated individual and is an important part of the Passport Health team.