Carlton Hall Consulting LLC (CHC) – Driving Global Change Through Community Solutions and Prevention Mastery

Carlton Hall Consulting LLC (CHC) is a dynamic, full-service consulting firm dedicated to providing customized solutions that drive measurable change for communities, organizations, and individuals. With a mission to solve complex social challenges and improve the human condition, CHC delivers expert training, technical assistance, and capacity-building services to clients in both the public and private sectors at local, national, and international levels.

As a co-owner of Prevention Mastery, CHC is at the forefront of professional development in the prevention field. Prevention Mastery is a cutting-edge, customizable online Learning Management System (LMS) that provides a suite of enhanced consultative services tailored for prevention professionals at the federal, state, regional, local, and international levels. Designed to streamline digital learning, Prevention Mastery consolidates e-learning needs into a single, comprehensive platform—offering automated training assignments, completion records, version control, and tracking. Through expert-led, self-paced courses, Prevention Mastery equips prevention professionals with actionable, data-driven strategies to drive change and leadership in the field.

Led by President and CEO Carlton Hall, CHC has been a leader in substance abuse prevention, capacity building, and community problem-solving for over 25 years. Carlton’s work spans four continents, partnering with global organizations, national governments, and grassroots coalitions to advance prevention science and demand reduction efforts. CHC has played a key role in international initiatives, including collaborations with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Colombo Plan, and the African Union, and has supported groundbreaking conferences and training programs in Kenya, India, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, and Uganda.

Committed to culturally responsive solutions, CHC has launched impactful global programs such as the Global Youth Prevention Scholars Initiative (GYPSI) and the NHIF Initiative in Kenya, which provided life-changing healthcare access to over 116 women and their families. CHC continues to shape global prevention efforts through executive training, technical assistance, and capacity-building support, including its work with SAMHSA’s Southeast Prevention Technology Transfer Center (PTTC, Region 4). Carlton Hall also serves as President of the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (NA-DEC) and sits on the board of Movendi International, further amplifying CHC’s influence in shaping sound drug policy, advancing prevention science, and strengthening community-led solutions worldwide.

Dr. Mark Gold gives a historical perspective on field of addiction from the original research of the brain disorder to current events.

Dr. Mark Gold is a frequent contributor to Psychology Today.

Dr. Mark Gold is an inventor, pioneering translational researcher, Eminent Scholar, Distinguished Professor, & Chairman whose career in translational neuroscience began in 1972. His theories have changed the field, stimulated research, and led to new treatments. Gold, while at the YSOM, proposed a novel brain mechanism and changes to explain opioid dependence and withdrawal, and discovered the anti-withdrawal efficacy of alpha-2 adrenergic agonists-clonidine and lofexidine. With his Yale colleague & mentor Herb Kleber, Gold helped change addiction psychiatry to disease management, evidence-based care with MATs, and evaluation & treatment of co-occurring disorders. He has made major contributions to Naloxone in overdose and Naltrexone and agonist therapies in OUD. Gold’s work proved that cocaine caused a relative dopamine deficiency, anhedonia & was addicting Gold pioneered the study of second-hand tobacco, cannabis, and opium smoke. Gold and Kelly Brownell co-chaired the historic Yale Conference on Food and hedonic overeating and the Oxford University Press textbook. Over his 25-year career at the University of Florida, he was a Professor of Neuroscience, physician-scientist at UF McKnight Brain Institute, and University bench-to-bedside leader. He became a UF Distinguished Professor, Eminent Scholar & Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry. He was awarded an innovator award from UF President as a translational researcher and inventor for work on Xhale Assurance’s disposable pulse oximetry ala sensor, which Philips acquired in 2018. Dr. Gold was a Founding Director of the MR-guided radiation oncology pioneer Viewray and AxoGen, the nerve recovery and repair platform. Since his retirement, Gold has continued his work as a researcher, mentor, and inventor working at WUSTL. Translating scientific progress to help patients, he worked with ADAPT Pharma on naloxone and naltrexone culminating in a HEAL grant to develop longer-acting formulations. He is on the BOD of education, intervention, and prevention organizations, including CADCA. ASAM presented Gold with the McGovern ” Annual Award for highly meritorious contributions … Lifetime pioneering work”. Dr. Gold has received the APA’s Foundation Fund Award, APF’s Pillar of Excellence, DEA & NAATP’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Research, and Distinguished Alumni Awards from Yale, WUSTL, and the University of Florida. He was a Founding Editor of the Journal of Addiction Medicine & UpToDate. Currently, the Specialty Chief Editor of SUDs and Behavioral Addictions in Frontiers in Public Health.

Since his retirement as a full-time academic in 2014, Dr. Mark Gold has continued his teaching, mentoring, research, and writing as a University of Florida Emeritus Eminent Scholar, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University and an active member of the Clinical Council at the Washington University School of Medicine’s Public Health Institute. With Kelly Brownell, he has updated their ground-breaking Food and Addiction by Oxford University Press for a paperback edition and is currently working on updates and revisions for a Second edition. He has analyzed and presented epidemiological research on the opioid and emerging cocaine epidemics. He has written and lectured on responses to reduce overdose deaths, medication assisted therapies and opioid use disorders. He regularly lectures at Medical...

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Richard Taite is the founder and Executive Chairman of Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa, an “ultra” luxury addiction treatment facility, and the Executive Chairman of 1 Method Centers, affordable substance use disorder treatment facilities. Richard graduated from UCLA with a degree in Political Science and Public Law and intended to become a lawyer, but after struggling with addiction himself, he learned what worked, what didn’t work, and where programs fell short and failed clients. In 2005 he founded Cliffside Malibu, a boutique rehab with only six beds which Richard steadily grew to 83 beds. In June of 2018, Richard sold Cliffside Malibu and took a much-needed break. Due to the exploding fentanyl epidemic, Richard came back to work to help combat this growing issue, and thus Carrara was born. One of Richard’s core beliefs is there is nothing to get, there is only to give. Building this legacy of giving people the life they were always meant to live, and leaving this world better than he found it he believes his children will be proud of. As he always says, a good father only cares about two things, that his children are proud of him, and that they are okay in the world when he is gone.

As a celebrated entrepreneur and visionary leader in the world of addiction treatment during the ever-burgeoning opioid crisis, Richard was a constant presence on television, radio and in magazine articles throughout his tenure at Cliffside, including featured appearances on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, ABC News’ Nightline, CBS’ This Morning, Entertainment Tonight and was the addiction expert in Prescription Thugs, an award-winning documentary, among many others.