Jason E. Bitzer has served as the Tuscola County District Court Judge since 2019. Prior to taking the bench, he was a private-practice attorney focusing on criminal defense, landlord-tenant law, and civil litigation. Since taking the bench, Judge Bitzer has taken on several responsibilities above and beyond the legal topics entrusted to district court judges in Michigan. He has overseen the Tuscola County Mental Health Court for the past 4 years and created the Tuscola County Juvenile Mental Health Court, which started in 2023. He is also involved in several community initiatives focused on combating the substance use epidemic.
Dayna Gauthier is the chief executive officer at A Chance to Change Drug and Alcohol Testing. She and her organization have been working with the courts in three rural counties for almost a decade. Over the years, her organization has participated in many community events helping provide education to both professionals and community members alike on a range of topics related to substance use and recovery. Ms. Gauthier participates on the Tuscola County, Michigan, Mental Health Court as the drug testing liaison.
Kristen Misener is the program development director for the Human Development Commission, a large community action agency covering the Michigan counties of Huron, Lapeer, Sanilac, and Tuscola. Ms. Misener works to develop and locally design programs/services that meet the needs of vulnerable populations. She also provides administrative oversight of the agency’s housing-to-homeless and domestic/sexual violence programming. She is excited to expand partnerships with the local court systems and substance use disorder providers to incorporate harm reduction strategies into direct service. Ms. Misener grew up in the Metro-Detroit area, studied nursing, and graduated from the University of Michigan with an interdisciplinary degree in health policy studies.
Nicholas “Nick” Tselepis left the world of insurance law in 2019 to tackle the problems faced by rural criminal justice systems. He has spent time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as a prosecutor, defense attorney, and tribal court judge and is committed to helping people rebuild from their personal rock-bottoms.