Dr. Stephanie Hutter-Thomas is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Maverick Minds LLC, a consulting firm committed to disrupting traditional systems and elevating lived experience as leadership. With a career spanning behavioral health research, workforce development, and peer support advocacy, Dr. Steph bridges community-rooted practice with evidence-based strategy to drive systems-level change.

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As someone with lived experience, she is deeply committed to expanding the peer workforce and strengthening the professional pathways available to Peer Recovery Specialists, Family Peer Support Specialists, and Community Health Workers. Following the merger of Appalachian Recovery Concepts into Maverick Minds, her firm now offers certification training, CEUs for recertification, peer supervision hours, and customized training for frontline professionals.

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Dr. Steph has led initiatives with institutions like Johns Hopkins University, West Virginia University, and the University of Maryland, focusing on substance use, harm reduction, and public health equity. She has served as Director of Peer & Organizational Development at Maryland Coalition of Families and currently acts as Co-Investigator for the Mountain Maryland Forward initiative. Her leadership extends across community-based research, program evaluation, training, and capacity building.

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She is a certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor, a Master Trainer for the Regrounding Our Response initiative (MD & WV), and a CCAR Recovery Coach Professional Facilitator (RCP-F). Dr. Steph also integrates CliftonStrengths and PQi (Partnering Quotient Index) methodologies into her coaching and organizational consulting work to create authentic, strength-based cultures.

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Fiercely committed to elevating marginalized voices, Dr. Steph brings a bold, practical, and rebellious edge to every space she enters, whether she’s coaching a team, leading a workshop, or testifying to policymakers. At her core, she believes that peers are the future of human services and she’s here to ensure they have the recognition, resources, and respect they deserve.