About us
We help you transform your life by reclaiming your independence.
Our organization
BEST provides tools and building blocks to help manage and navigate day-to-day hurdles. We present practical apps (including our very own BEST Suite), strategies, and training to help brain injury survivors and other groups dealing with executive function and self-regulation challenges. Our goal is to teach individuals to use smart devices as cognitive prosthetics.
Our Mission
BEST helps those with brain injury—and other medical conditions impacting cognition—who have never received or have exhausted their medical rehabilitation and continue to struggle with day-to-day cognitive challenges.
Meet our team
Our team includes brain injury survivors who volunteer their time and areas of expertise, and our founder, Michelle Ranae Wild, who has over 30 years experience teaching individuals with brain injury. BEST provides an opportunity for survivors to share their experiences which in turn, drives our product development. By practicing and applying their skills in a non-stressful, supportive working environment, volunteers are able to build confidence and be better prepared to return to work or school. Our combined efforts allow us to provide you with practical and proven solutions to common, everyday struggles.

Michelle Ranae Wild
Founder/CEO
michelle@bestconnections.org
Michelle Ranae Wild’s passion is helping individuals living with brain injury and other cognitive conditions learn to use compensatory strategies to gain greater independence. Her entire career, more than three decades, has been dedicated to teaching executive function and self-regulation skills to students in Coastline College’s Acquired Brain Injury Program.
Working with my students at Coastline and the BEST team is more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.

Kristi Kragthorpe
Co-founder, Curriculum Designer
kristi@bestconnections.org

Barbara Applegate
Instructional Designer
barbara@bestconnections.org

Patty Mannett
Team Member
patty@bestconnections.org
Meet our Board

Laurie Ehlhardt Powell, Ph.D.
Board President

Lisa Winger
Secretary/Treasurer

Stacey Hunter Schwartz, Ph.D.
Board Member

Ciro Visone, Ph.D.
Board Member

Allison Patrick
Board Member