Moving Train Radio: Meet The Hosts

Moving Train Radio is an interactive webcast, focusing on politics, current events, and anything else of interest to our listeners. It is a collaboration of Jeff Pickens in New Jersey, and Heidi Hollen and Dave Slavens in Minnesota.

Meet the hosts (in alphabetical order):

Heidi Hollen Heidi has been interested in politics, and football (Pittsburgh Steelers!), since she was a young girl growing up on a dairy farm in rural Minnesota. Her interests vary from politics, women’s issues, the criminal justice system, volunteering, animal rescue, and health care reform (especially as it relates to mental health). Heidi earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in Sociology with a focus in Law, Criminology, & Deviancy, her Masters from Concordia University in Criminal Justice Leadership, and she is currently working on her PhD in Public Policy and Administration with a focus in Law and Public Policy at Walden University. When she is not working or studying Heidi volunteers for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and is a current board member for the Greater MN chapter. She started volunteering for AFSP after the suicide of her brother-in-law Jesse Schultz in April 2011 and joined the board in 2012. Her main focus for the Greater MN chapter is on Advocacy for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Programs on both the state and federal level. Heidi currently lives in Minneapolis with her husband Dave Slavens and their multiple cats and dogs.

Jeff Pickens
Jeff is a 57 year old accountant by day, with over 30 years experience in the defense and aerospace industry. His outside interests and passions include cooking (both outdoors and indoors), photography, writing, fundraising, and volunteering. Every year Jeff puts his passions for cycling, BBQ, and photography by participating in the Philadelphia American Cancer Society Bikeathon, the Garry Maddox BBQ Challenge benefitting Compete 360, and Philadelphia Help Portrait.
In addition to his own blog, Pick's Place 2.0, Jeff has contributed to other blogs, including CNN iReport and OpenSalon. His account of a counter-protest against the Westboro Baptist Church's attempt to disrupt a soldier's funeral in Bordentown, NJ earned a front page "Editor's Pick" in Open Salon.
Jeff has a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from Thomas Edison State College, Trenton NJ and is active in the Alumni Association as as an advocate for the school, having appeared before the NJ State Assembly Budget Committee successfully leading the fight against merging the college with Rutgers University, and appearing in radio, print and internet banner ads for the college.
A Bergen County native and lifelong resident and self-proclaimed expert on all things New Jersey, Jeff currently lives in Gloucester County with his wife Lori.

Dave Slavens Dave has lived all over in the U.S. ranging from locations as the southwest, west coast, Washington D.C., and the mid-west. He has worked in a variety of industries such as hospitality, construction, and Information Technology, about every ten years his career focus adjust and Dave reinvents himself. In late 1997 Dave was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis and while learning how to manage his condition he has learned that there major issues with how insurance companies treat their members. With the implementation of the Affordable Health Care act he feels that we have made a much needed stride to focus on patient’s rights vs. insurance companies profits, but he knows there is still a long way to go before the U.S. embraces a Single Payer System. Dave is a proponent for mental health care, he has lost his father to PTSD and three other family members to suicide. In 2012 Dave was diagnosed with Complex PTSD, because of his mental illness and the mental illness in his family Dave openly talks about his condition in hopes to shatter the stigma around mental illness. He is currently the Board Chair for the Greater MN chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Dave holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Information Systems from Metropolitan State University, a Master’s in Business Administration from Keller Graduate School of Management, and he is currently working on his second Masters in Project Management. He currently lives in Minneapolis, MN with his wife Heidi Hollen and their multiple cats and dogs.