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BOWLING GREEN, KY. July 19, 2023 – The founding team of Oria Health announces their telehealth-first behavioral health practice’s planned expansion to Kentucky, alongside the establishment of the headquarters of its management service organization, Lunae, at the WKU Innovation Campus in Bowling Green, Kentucky. With the support of the City of Bowling Green, Warren County, Western Kentucky University, and the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, the team of innovators at Lunae and Oria plan to revolutionize the healthcare landscape of Kentucky by leveraging telehealth to increase access to behavioral healthcare, while simultaneously providing a workplace for mental health professionals that doesn’t require them to sacrifice their own mental health.
With an eye toward Kentucky and a focus on rural populations and the need for increased access to care, Oria CEO and Lunae co-founder Amanda Havard aims to build upon Oria Health’s success in Texas. The move to Bowling Green presents a strategic opportunity for growth, for joining a supportive and innovative ecosystem, for improving rural healthcare, and for enhancing the local workforce while creating new job opportunities.
“From the moment Oria’s founder, Dr. Richard Connell, painted his vision for leveraging telehealth to help reach the people who need it most, I knew he was ready to build something special. When discussing expansion, we knew we needed to find somewhere special,” Havard said. “When we came to Bowling Green and got to witness firsthand the unbelievable alignment of the WKU Innovation Campus, the Chamber, local government, and business resources, we knew that we’d found a place to call home.”
Havard emphasized that it is, above all else, the Bowling Green community’s spirit that brings Oria and Lunae to Kentucky.
“Our commitment to our clients, to our community, and to ourselves is to leave things better than we find them,” she said. “Oria’s tagline is people helping people, and we witnessed all sorts of people helping us to get us to Bowling Green. We could not be more grateful or thrilled to be growing Oria in Kentucky, or to plant Lunae’s roots in Bowling Green.”
Lunae, Havard’s new company that will headquarter in Bowling Green, builds on work being done to help fuel Oria’s establishment and expansion in Texas – and will help Oria as it expands to Kentucky.
“Over the last two and a half years at Oria, we’ve had the pleasure of offering mental health services while also building tools that help a company do better business, and take better care of its people,” Havard said. “Behind the scenes, we’ve been running Oria like its own behavioral health innovation lab. We knew one day we’d want to expand not just Oria’s services, but use our management company, Lunae, to expand offering our innovations that could serve other workplaces.”
To establish a new headquarters for Lunae, the company will make a capital investment of $500,000 and aims to occupy a space of up to 1,200 square feet at the WKU Innovation Campus. The Lunae HQ project is anticipated to create up to 27 jobs, consisting of a core team of 10 employees, and including additional contractors and full-time staff to support ongoing operations as Oria grows, and as Lunae takes on more local partners and clients. Oria is also adding Kentucky licensure for its current team of 50 therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists to help increase access to care for Kentuckians immediately. Lunae is confident that the psychoeducation, human-centered tools, systems, and technologies developed by launching Oria will greatly benefit the local community and can be utilized to improve healthcare delivery in other regions. They aim to bring their unique approach to prioritizing the mental health of their own team to regional businesses, school systems, and organizations.
A seasoned startup founder, Havard also expressed her team’s desire to help cultivate the burgeoning innovation culture rooted at the WKU Innovation Campus. “We’ve chosen Bowling Green because we can see it is uniquely poised to build an uplifting, cohesive, collaborative community for innovators, entrepreneurs, and creatives,” she said. “After a decade and a half of surviving in competitive environments, we’re looking forward to cultivating a collaborative ecosystem.” She is already working with two local teams with ideas in incubation, leveraging her team’s experience to help form good ideas into good businesses.
“Ensuring that Kentuckians from every corner of the state have access to quality health care services is critical to the commonwealth’s continued success and growth,” said Gov. Beshear. “Innovative companies providing quality services and high-paying jobs, like Lunae, increasingly are choosing Kentucky to locate and grow their business. I want to thank company leadership for believing in the commonwealth and Southcentral Kentucky and I looking forward to their future success.”
"We are excited to support Lunae and their client Oria Health’s mission to enhance telehealth capabilities and improve patient outcomes. This partnership aligns perfectly with our commitment to innovation and advancing healthcare education,” said Doug Gorman Warren County Judge Executive.
"We are thrilled to welcome both Lunae and Oria Health to Bowling Green. This partnership will revolutionize healthcare, improve access, and drive economic growth. We look forward to working together to enhance telehealth capabilities and create new job opportunities. Together, we can build our city's healthier and more prosperous future,” said Mayor Todd Alcott.
“Amanda Havard, and her teams at Oria Health and Lunae, are collaborative thought leaders,” said Buddy Steen, WKU Innovation Campus CEO. “That makes them perfect additions to our entrepreneurial ecosystem and to the community of co-creators we have across the WKU Innovation Campus,”
"We believe that Lunae will not only bring economic growth to our region but also significantly improve access to quality healthcare across the Commonwealth," stated Ron Bunch, CEO and President of Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce. "We look forward to working closely with Amanda and her team in achieving our shared vision."
Year to date, the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce has announced three economic development projects in South Central Kentucky, totaling $39 million in capital investment creating 203 new jobs in the region. Bowling Green has also been recognized as one of the Top 6 Tier 2 Metros in the United States for its tenth consecutive year by Site Selection Magazine. The Chamber is a three-time Mac Conway Award winner, recognizing the Chamber as a Top 20 Economic Development Organization in the Country.
About Oria Health:
Oria Health is a leading telehealth-first behavioral health company dedicated to revolutionizing healthcare delivery and making sure it reaches where it’s needed most. Focusing on improving patient outcomes and access to quality care, Oria Health develops innovative tools and technologies that empower therapists and healthcare providers. By leveraging telehealth solutions, Oria Health aims to transform healthcare delivery, making it more accessible, efficient, and patient-centered. Founded by Dr. Richard Connell, Havard and her Lunae team have grown Oria from an idea to a thriving business that helps thousands of clients every month. https://www.oria.health
About Lunae:
Innovation is sometimes thought of as alchemy. Inspiration strikes at just the right moment –eureka! – and a fearless creator runs after the idea until it’s real. Until it works. But in truth, core design principles can turn innovation into a repeatable process. While innovation is never a sure thing, serial startup founder and strategist, Amanda Havard, has formed a process that ultimately helps teams go from Idea to Thing. Havard and her team at Lunae are well-versed in taking a repeatable approach to the messy work of innovation and creation. Using human-centered design principles, and multiple developmental and learning theories, Lunae takes the creativity and the brilliance of those middle-of-the-night ideas and turns them into something tangible. Oria Health is its core client.
About WKU Innovation Campus:
The WKU Innovation Campus is an applied research and intellectual hub that spurs innovative collaboration, promotes problem-solving and nurtures talent to elevate the economy and region. Through real-world applications and entrepreneurial support, the Innovation Campus engages and connects researchers, students and start-ups with corporations, industry leaders and local businesses to tackle challenges and foster a talent-first strategy to meet the needs of the region’s growing industries.
About South Central Kentucky Economic Development:
South Central Kentucky Economic Development is an entity of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, a nationally ranked 5-Star Accredited Chamber. Located at the center of a 34-state distribution area in the eastern United States, South Central Kentucky is a prime location for manufacturing and distribution facilities. South Central Kentucky is within a day’s drive of 60% of the nation's population, personal income, and manufacturing business establishments. Bowling Green ranks second in the United States for best manufacturing city. The region has captured over four billion in capital investment in the past decade, creating thousands of jobs. To learn more, please visit https://www.southcentralky.com/