Combining decades of healthcare and technology industry experience, Jeff McLaren formed Medaxion, LLC in 2008 to maximize information technology opportunities in the anesthesia practice market. Prior to founding Medaxion, he was co-founder and CEO of Safer Sleep, LLC, where he led the company through four years of transition, including the 2004 acquisition of New Zealand-based Safer Sleep, Ltd. and three rounds of private equity investment totaling $5.1 million. Safer Sleep provides anesthesia safety and record automation services to hospitals in New Zealand and the UK.

As co-founder, president and chief product officer of HealthStream, Inc., Mr. McLaren managed the company through 11 years of growth, culminating in a staged $19 million private equity offering in 1999 and a $55 million IPO in 2000 (NASDAQ: HSTM). HealthStream has become the leading provider of e-learning services to the healthcare industry, holding a dominant 25% share of its primary market. During his long tenure, Mr. McLaren was primarily responsible for managing the development of the company’s products – evolving its initial installed product into an enterprise application that currently services over 1.6 million client personnel. Mr. McLaren remains an active member of HealthStream’s board of directors and is a member of its audit committee.

In 2000, Mr. McLaren served as Chairman of the Nashville Technology Council in its inaugural year. He has worked with startup organizations through his consulting company Southern Genesis, LLC. He received a B.A. in business and philosophy from Trinity University.

With more than 20 years of experience advising technology-based organizations, John Toups is responsible for overseeing Medaxion’s technology strategy, outsourced product development, production server operations and product deployment/integration architecture. In 2004, Mr. Toups joined Safer Sleep, LLC as CTO and was responsible for technology strategy, production server operations, FDA/regulatory communication and, later, product sales. He was instrumental in facilitating the migration of the company’s anesthesia safety and record automation product from an installed solution to ASP product, provisioning U.S. and New Zealand data centers, achieving U.S. FDA approval, and enabling successful U.S. product trials.

In 2001, Mr. Toups joined empactHealth.com, a seed company formed by Hospital Corporation of America, where he helped build core technologies, which later grew to be the world’s largest business-to-business exchange for healthcare supplies. He was responsible for the design, deployment and performance of web-based applications targeted toward an audience of more than 300,000 care providers. empactHealth.com was ultimately purchased by the Global Healthcare Exchange in 2003 and continues to operate the empactHealth.com requisitioning and connectivity solutions.

In 1998, Mr. Toups joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center as the manager of research and design for the VUMC Bioinformatics Department. There, he created a polymorphic point-of-care portal, which provides the backbone of VUMC’s patient information delivery system. Since 1987, Mr. Toups has provided insight and direction to a variety of private and public technology-based organizations and specializes in designing scalable, low total cost of ownership solutions for startup organizations worldwide.

With clinical and management expertise, Dyer Rodes, MD, provides clinical anesthesia advisory for Medaxion and serves on Medaxion’s board of directors. He is an active clinical partner, founding partner and former board member at Anesthesia Medical Group (AMG). Based in Nashville, AMG is one of the largest anesthetic practices in the United States. Dr. Rodes served as the chief of anesthesiology at Hospital Corporation of America’s flagship hospital Centennial Medical Center (CMC) in Nashville from 2002 to 2005. He was a member of the board of trustees at CMC from 2002 to 2007, serving as vice-chairman from 2005 to 2006 and chairman in 2007.

Dr. Rodes led the hospital-practice team that assisted Safer Sleep, LLC localize its New Zealand-developed anesthesia safety and record automation product for the U.S. market. Under his clinical supervision, the Safer Sleep System performed a series of product trials at CMC in 2004 through 2006. CMC clinical trials and localization efforts proved instrumental in the Safer Sleep System receiving FDA approval in November 2005. Dr. Rodes co-authored a study from these trials, reporting significant improvement in charge capture from the use of the device.

Dr. Rodes received his degree in medicine from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and completed his anesthesia residency at the University of Florida. He has performed approximately 27,000 anesthetic procedures during his 17 years of practice.

Currently a managing director and partner at Erwin, Graves & Associates, Jim Graves has worked in the securities industry for more than two decades, primarily in management positions and as an investment banker. From 1980 to 1991, he was employed at Dean Witter Reynolds, where he started the firm’s energy group. He built the Southwest region into Dean Witter’s largest regional unit and became the first head of the firm’s industry groups.

From 1991 to 2000, he was a partner at J.C. Bradford, culminating as COO and head of equity capital markets. While co-head of investment banking, revenues grew tenfold and market penetration doubled. As head of equity capital markets, he completely reoriented the firm’s strategy, creating a research-based trading and banking business that was the leading firm in the South. In his role as COO, Mr. Graves was responsible for implementing firm strategy at the operating level. He was also asked to resolve the firm’s need for capital, and, later, he managed the sale of the firm in March 2000 to Paine Webber while continuing his operating responsibilities.

In 2002, Mr. Graves joined Detwiler, Mitchell & Co., a Boston-based securities firm, as COO and vice chairman after acquiring a controlling shareholder interest. He was responsible for developing the long-term strategy of the firm including management development. In 2006, he sold the majority of his ownership interest to key employees and continues as an employee and a member of the finance committee. In 2005, Mr. Graves became a co-founder of BankCap Partners, LP, a Dallas-based private equity fund. The fund has raised $110 million and organized its first investment in Atlanta. Atlantic Capital Bank, which opened in 2007, was the largest de novo bank opened in U.S. history. In 2008, Mr. Graves joined Device Fidelity, a Dallas-based credit card technology startup. He sits on the boards of Cash America International (CSH), Hallmark Financial Services (HALL) and BankCap Partners, LP.

Mr. Graves graduated from Trinity College where he majored in economics.

A healthcare and financial services veteran, Luke Simons was co-senior partner of J.C. Bradford & Co. from 1980 to 2000. Located in Nashville, J.C. Bradford & Co. was one of the 10 largest privately held investment banks in the United States with a primary focus on the healthcare and financial services sectors. Following the sale of J.C. Bradford & Co. to UBS in 2000, Mr. Simons remained active with UBS as a senior advisor to the UBS healthcare investment banking team and is the UBS principal representative in Nashville. Mr. Simons is currently an operating partner with Council Ventures.

Mr. Simons has expertise in the financing of all stages of healthcare and financial services companies, from startup to IPO to large-cap public company, as well as “going-private” buyout financing and advisory work. In addition, he has a deep understanding of and expertise in healthcare and financial services mergers and acquisitions. His longstanding relationships extend to an extraordinary number of healthcare’s most successful serial entrepreneurs and senior managers.

He received his B.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Currently a managing director at Erwin, Graves & Associates, Howard Manning has 36 years of experience in commercial, mortgage and private banking. From 1972 until 1978, Mr. Manning worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City as an operations and credit bank examiner. During the next 20 years, he was employed in both money center and super regional banks including Citicorp, Boatmen’s Banks, St. Louis, First National Bank in St. Louis and First National Bank in Kansas City, Mo., and Worthen Banks, Little Rock. Throughout this period, Mr. Manning was a senior manager responsible for key banking divisions including commercial banking, mortgage banking and private banking. He also held positions in product development and cash and treasury management for a leading Midwest U.S. cash management bank.

From 1998 until 2005, Mr. Manning was the founder, organizing principal and initial president and CEO for a de novo bank, Parkway Bank, National Association, chartered in Plano, Texas. In 2005, Mr. Manning and his partners sold out their interests in Parkway Bank. Since 2005, he has been engaged as a consultant to the TelecomPioneers, the world’s largest volunteer organization, developing a suite of affinity financial services available to individual telephone company pioneers and their partners as well as the TelecomPioneers chapters, clubs and councils.

He earned a B.S. in business administration with a major in economics and a minor in finance from Creighton University, and an M.B.A. with a major in finance from the University of Missouri.