About Our Team
Pam Harris
Owner and Vocational Consultant
Pam Harris has a thirty-year history of collaborating with support agencies, business and community members in developing and implementing a variety of programs and direct services for hundreds of individuals with barriers to employment. She is known for her personalized approach in learning the strengths of workers and helping them move toward their dream jobs. Working with both youth and adults, Ms. Harris specializes in Community Based Work Evaluations, transition services for students, including work experience, job shadows and market surveys, as well as helping workers/employers make good job matches.
Before launching Common-Sense Solutions in April 2016, Ms. Harris served as Supported Employment Program Manager and Vocational Evaluator for Tesh, Inc. Her team of job coaches helped workers with various challenges grow more independent at their jobs, and her partnership with Kiwanis Club in developing AKtion Club of Kootenai County gave rise to the largest Kiwanis organization for people with disabilities in the Northwest. Currently focused on helping motivated workers become exceptional employees, Ms. Harris has placed supported workers at a variety of local businesses, striving to create a successful and profitable experience for everyone.
Ms. Harris earned her Master of Education from the University of Idaho, and holds a Certificate in Rehabilitation Administration from Western Washington University, where she also completed the Emerging Leaders Series. Her dedication has been recognized repeatedly on local, regional and national levels, including Kiwanian of the Year (2015), three-time Advocate of the Year, as well as recognition by the Disability Action Center; she was selected six times to accompany individuals with disabilities to Washington D.C. in order to share information regarding vocational challenges for Idaho workers. Ms. Harris began serving her term as Community Rehab Program representative on the Idaho State Rehab Council in October, 2019.
Anna Mareci
Employment Specialist
Anna Mareci has a half-century of experience working with individuals who need extra help, beginning in youth as sibling of a special needs child, and stepping into the role of caregiver, advocate and coach when her daughter suffered traumatic brain injury at the age of eleven. Her career has encompassed numerous working environments ranging from food service, agricultural and janitorial, to office, construction and factory; this exposure is key to Ms. Mareci’s flexibility and clear grasp of requirements for workplace success.
With strong communications skills, Ms. Mareci gravitated toward writing early in life; she later collaboated with a certified instructor to write curriculum for educational magazines, going on to volunteer in public and private schools with students of all ages, encouraging creative writing. She taught hands-on workshops in community-oriented programs focusing on the benefits of incorporating more raw food into the diet, and has also worked as a caregiver for the elderly, disabled and cognitively challenged.
Ms. Mareci provides administrative support and job coaching for Common-Sense Solutions; her expertise and tranquil presentation foster trust and ease in workers as well as business owners and members of the professional community.
Brianna Turk
Employment Specialist
Brianna Turk has always sought to expand her worldview through exploration and discovery; strong interests include sustainability, green living, and alternative healing. She brings a unique flavor of forward positive motion to her work as a Job Coach because of her dedication to gaining a deeper understanding of different perspectives.
With past experience in retail management, promotional events and support service for an alternative healing center, Ms. Turk’s history facilitates comfort and ease in a variety of settings. In promotional work, her initial focus was creatively generating sales through positive interaction with patrons; with more experience, she recruited, interviewed and hired other promotional models as well.
Ms. Turk is the mother of two young children, and for several years, she nannied for multiple families, carrying out a variety of duties. She coordinated complex schedules, transported children to classes and after-school events, always prioritizing healthy and positive interactions, problem-solving, and active progressive activities.
Taking on managerial duties for multiple video outlets early in her career, Ms. Turk has contributed to the success of many Workers since 2009 through providing training and evaluation at Video Theater as a host business. She actively participated in all phases, as well as creating work schedules and covering shifts for regular employees when necessary. The experience she gained working in a wellness center inspired Ms. Turk to earn her certification in Thai Bodywork and Eastern Energy Theory in 2017, and she continues to pursue further education in the field of natural healing.
Rhonda Disrud
Employment Specialist
Rhonda Disrud’s focus on how working environments affect employees led to her development of excellent skills in reading non-verbal cues and assessing placements. This gift for identifying the source of workers’ underlying tension opens novel avenues for creating ease and raising productivity in a variety of settings.
Drawing from a wide range of personal involvement in the workplace, Ms. Disrud has learned to see the overall environment as an integral player in an employee’s functional capacity. Evaluating sensory stimulation levels of individuals in given environments to better accommodate their needs is one successful approach she’s implemented over a long history of training and mentoring individuals with physical, emotional, behavioral and communication challenges.
Prior to joining the Common-Sense Solutions team, Ms. Disrud served the community in many capacities, working with a number of agencies and organizations, including Post Falls School District, Tesh, Inc., Goodwill Industries, Alpha Health Services, Pinewood Training Center, and Ross Point Conference Center. Duties ranged across the board: assisting clients with daily living skills and behavior management, coordinating services, monitoring transitional student plans, teaching academics, and training staff. She is a volunteer Basic Life Support (BLS) instructor for the American Heart Association, and has spent five years as a Special Olympics coach.
Ms. Disrud’s well-developed communication skills extend to the vital area of documentation, and her cultivation of comfortable rapport with workers is a contributing factor to her expertise in working one-on-one or taking the lead in group settings. She enjoys helping individuals feel empowered by greater levels of independence, accomplished through instruction and providing opportunities for practicing self-management and increasing productivity in their daily lives.
Nathan Bemis
Nathan Bemis provides IT services for Common-Sense Solutions, helping team members in utilizing technology as they assist customers to define, track and measure their vocational development. He develops and maintains forms to meet business needs, as well as delivering ongoing support and training.
Mr. Bemis’s past experience includes retail management early in his career, a two-year stint as a Rehab Tech for Tesh, Inc. in Coeur d’Alene, and seven years serving as Public Assistance Coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he conducted damage assessments of public infrastructures throughout the United States. In his work with FEMA, he also supervised field inspectors, reviewed project reports, collaborated with agency representatives, and developed grant applications.
His involvement with FEMA led Mr. Bemis to seek further education in the engineering field, and he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Idaho in 2018. He is now employed by Murraysmith, a large company providing services in transportation and water system engineering, from design and planning to rehabilitation and upgrades, for cities and communities all over the American west.
Always intrigued by the natural world, Mr. Bemis enjoys getting out for a hike in search of what’s over the hill or around the next bend. An enthusiastic camper, one of his favorite pastimes is finding the perfect spot to build a fire and hunker down for the night. He plans to build his own camper/van conversion for future excursions.
Jessica Johnson
Administrative Clerk
Jessica Johnson is a business owner herself, which puts her in a unique position to understand the importance of administrative efficiency. Operating J & S Industries, LLC, a fulfillment center in Post Falls, Idaho, has been Mrs. Johnson’s focus since 2018; in 2021 she joined the Common-Sense Solutions team as Administrative Clerk.
Her past experience as Warehouse Manager at Click Shop CDA was a great lead-in for starting J & S Industries, giving her plenty of experience in filtering and printing orders, handling inventory, processing returns and keeping physical files up to date. Mrs. Johnson uses many of the same skills in her warehouse work at J & S Industries, and the business has grown steadily since its inception.
From the start of her involvement in warehouse work, Mrs. Johnson found administrative duties to be her favorite part of the job. She believes her need to have things super organized has contributed to her success, as well as her willingness to make sure every detail is attended to properly, even if that means checking over tasks multiple times. She is beginning the process of evaluating and training workers onsite at J & S Industries and will host her first Summer Youth Program student during the 2021 season.
A member of the Honors Society at her graduation from St. Maries High School in 2003, Mrs. Johnson’s education included participation in band as well as KEY Club, basketball, volleyball and track. She also pursued higher education at NIC and Lewis and Clark State College, expanding her knowledge and developing leadership and problem-solving skills.
Married and the mother of three children, Mrs. Johnson’s enthusiasm for sports has become a family affair with year-round sporting events for everyone; in addition, she runs an adult softball team. Originally from North Dakota, Mrs. Johnson and her family travel regularly to visit friends and relatives, camping and exploring new places along the way to enjoy a fresh adventure each time.
MaryBeth Ranum
MaryBeth Ranum is a Senior Certified Human Resources Professional with over 15 years in all functional areas of Human Resources. Ms. Ranum has her Master’s in Business Administration with a Human Resources Development emphasis. She has over 30 years of management experience and a Management Certificate from the American Management Association.
Ms. Ranum has experience in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She is supporting Common Sense Solutions as Human Resources Consultant while serving as the Vice President of Human Resources for the YWCA of Central Alabama (Birmingham, Alabama). She previously served as Director of Operations (Human Resources, Finance, IT, Facilities/Safety) for Tesh, Inc. in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for 14 years.
Ms. Ranum’s first career was in the telecommunications industry where she successfully developed, implemented, and maintained Sales Implementation programs for Fortune 1200 accounts. She also managed projects in various functional areas including facility network builds. She served on Marketing, Customer Service, and Systems and Process integration teams following several mergers and acquisition.
As a consultant Ms. Ranum has provided strategic planning, customer service, project management, system development, business operations, and the full spectrum of human resources to a variety of customers in a variety of industries.
Below you can see a visual representation of how our company is organized.
