Categories: presenter

Don Mackintosh is a Registered Nurse, a pastor, a mental health counselor and teacher. He and his wife Luminitsa (BArch) have four children. He loves to see people healed by God’s revelation in Scripture and science. For the past decade he has served in various capacities at Weimar Institute.

Dr. Roger Gallant is an emergency physician and the NEWSTART Medical Director. He has been practicing lifestyle medicine for about 14 years and has a passion to help people combat the degenerative diseases through lifestyle modification. He and his family traveled around the country teaching about lifestyle for about 4 years. He has been involved with NEWSTART for about 7 years, and is very excited about helping people through this NEWSTART Online program. He wants to share simple and practical things that people can do at home to improve their health.

Michelle is a passionate vegan chef and instruction, the best selling author of “Sugar-Free Raw Desserts”, and currently holds are cooking instructor position for the world famous NEWSTART Lifestyle Center in Weimar,CA. She is also a featured chef for Life and Health Network. She earned her chef certification from the renowned Living Light Culinary Arts Institute, and holds a Bachelor of Science from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Neil Nedley, M.D., is a full-time practicing physician in Internal Medicine with emphasis in Gastroenterology, Mental Health, Lifestyle Medicine, and the difficult-to-diagnose patient.

Dr. Nedley is also the President of Weimar Institute that runs the NEWSTART® residential lifestyle center, academy and college, located in Weimar, California. Dr. Nedley is author of the book Proof Positive: How to Reliably Combat Disease and Achieve Optimal Health through Nutrition and Lifestyle, now in its fourth printing. This book provides scientifically validated-common sense nutritional and lifestyle therapies that can make a substantial difference in treatment and/or prevention of the most common life threatening diseases in today’s world.

He is also the author of the book, Depression-the Way Out and author of the 8-part DVD Workbook Series that is used extensively in mental health education programs throughout the U.S. and other countries. These projects were the end result of Dr. Nedley’s observation that Major Depressions was becoming increasingly common in his internal medicine practice. This led to spending considerable time in medical university libraries researching the causes and treatments of this debilitating condition.

Jeff Walper is currently the Chaplain and Counselor for the NEWSTART® Lifestyle Program at Weimar Institute in Weimar, California. Twenty-two years ago, Jeff was tending bar in the Atlanta area. After receiving a piece of gospel literature and attending the training mentioned in the pamphlet, his worldview was changed. From that point forward, he dedicated his life to the service of Jesus Christ. Since that time, his experiences in ministry have been many, multicultural, and varied. He has been a missionary in Japan, in Africa and in Cuba. He graduated from Southern Adventist University, near Chattanooga, with his bachelor’s degree in Theology. He went on to earn his Master of Divinity degree from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University in Michigan. His work with and for people has included serving as a hospital chaplain, planting churches, and ministering as a district pastor with congregations large and small. Married for fourteen years, Jeff is a devoted husband and a dedicated dad. His hobbies include time with his family, traveling, exploring, hiking, and gardening. Jeff considers it an honor to be a part of the NEWSTART® team.

Eileen has been working as the NEWSTART Lifestyle Program since 2016. She provides individual nutrition counseling to help guests prevent and reverse disease. She also lectures on various nutrition topics.

Eileen received her Masters in Public Health Nutrition from Loma Linda University in 1989 and is a licensed Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.

April is a certified massage therapist who received her training in massage and hydrotherapy at Weimar College in 2010. She began working at the NEWSTART Lifestyle Program the following year, where she gives lectures on natural remedies, and is the head of the Massage and Hydro Department. April loves sharing the knowledge and experiences she has gained to help others increase the quality of their lives.

Randall L. Bivens, M.D. has been the chief operating officer at Weimar Institute for the last six years. Those have been years of unprecedented growth including accreditation of the college, starting an accredited nursing program, and physical expansion of the campus infrastructure. He has always been passionate about lifestyle medicine and believes in the program so much that he, along with Dr. Nedley (our CEO) has never taken compensation to do the work that he does here at Weimar Institute.

Dr. Kuninobu is a family medicine physician who also has a Masters of Public Health degree in health promotion and health education. He has always had a strong interest in lifestyle medicine and prevention and tried to incorporate these principles in his 25+ years of practice as a family doctor. In 2016, he was led to increase his time and influence in lifestyle medicine by joining the NEWSTART team.