Meet Our Board of Directors
ATF is governed by a volunteer board of directors with expertise spanning physical rehabilitation, legal and technology systems, clinical education, and military training design. Board members provide strategic oversight, fiduciary accountability, and organizational governance.
J. Lance Acree, Lt Col USAF (ret), PhD
Board Chair/ President
Lance is a retired U.S. Air Force officer, instructor pilot, and training system architect who commanded the USAF C-17 flying training squadron. He holds three STEM degrees and a doctorate focused on constructive social change. His civilian career has included designing training systems for international aviation organizations and serving as founding board president of a community-focused nonprofit. He brings to ATF a systems thinker’s discipline — and a deep commitment to ensuring that the people who help others heal have access to the same quality of education and preparation as any other profession.
Jessica Nicolle
Treasurer/ Director
Jessica trained as a Physical Therapist Assistant at Mount Hood Community College and gained direct clinical experience working with both pediatric and geriatric populations in aquatic and rehabilitation settings. Her hands-on work in the water gave her a practitioner’s understanding of both the therapeutic value of aquatic rehabilitation and the workforce gaps that limit community access to it. She brings to the ATF board a ground-level perspective on what well-trained professionals make possible — and what their absence costs the patients who need them most.
Robert M. Poteat, J.D. (Ret.)
Secretary/ Director
Bob is a retired Tennessee attorney with more than five decades of legal practice, admitted to the Tennessee Bar in 1968. He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Tennessee College of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of South Carolina — a combination that positioned him at the intersection of law, science, and technology throughout his career. His professional work included intellectual property, technology transfer, and legal matters related to research and advanced technical systems, including work associated with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Oak Ridge scientific community. He brings to ATF a grounded understanding of legal compliance, organizational governance, and the institutional structures that protect a nonprofit’s mission over time.
Marcia Walker
Director/ Community Representative
Marcia Walker, Community Representative — Patient Voice, serves on the ATF board as the voice of the people this work is ultimately for. As a physical therapy and aquatic therapy patient herself, she brings firsthand experience of what skilled, accessible rehabilitation makes possible — and what it means when it isn’t available. Her perspective keeps ATF’s governance grounded in the patient experience that every program, partnership, and training initiative is designed to serve.
Andrea Salzman, MS, PT
CEO & Founder | Director.
Non-voting on matters of personal conflict.
Andrea is a licensed physical therapist with more than 30 years of clinical and educational experience in aquatic rehabilitation and geriatric care. She has built workforce training systems that have reached tens of thousands of physical therapists, occupational therapists, and rehabilitation professionals across the United States and internationally.
She is the creator of the Aquatic Resources Network, the largest multidisciplinary aquatic therapy clearinghouse in the country, and has authored five textbooks, more than 500 hours of continuing education content, and more than 400 professional publications.
She previously served as Editor of the Journal of Aquatic Physical Therapy and is a recipient of the American Physical Therapy Association’s Judy Cirullo Leadership Award — the highest honor in aquatic physical therapy. She founded ATF because the field she has spent her career building deserves infrastructure that belongs to no single company and serves every patient who needs it.