Executive Leadership of the Board of Registered Nursing

Lori is the Executive Officer of the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN), where she leads statewide efforts to support safe, high quality nursing care for Californians. She brings decades of experience in nursing practice, education, and regulation, with a career dedicated to strengthening the nursing profession and protecting the public.

Since her appointment in 2020, Ms. Melby has overseen the Board’s licensing, enforcement, and nursing education programs and guided key initiatives focused on transparency, operational improvement, and regulatory excellence. She also works closely with state leaders, partner agencies, and national organizations to advance policies that support nurses and improve patient care.

Before stepping into the Executive Officer role, Ms. Melby served as a Nursing Education Consultant for the BRN and held leadership positions in clinical operations and academic nursing. She has taught and mentored nursing students, managed multisite healthcare teams, and contributed expert guidance on nursing practice and education statewide. Her clinical background includes labor and delivery, pediatrics, and forensic nursing as a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner.

Ms. Melby has been recognized for her contributions to nursing education and patient care and remains actively involved in community engagement. Her work reflects a long standing commitment to supporting nurses and enhancing the quality and safety of healthcare in California.

Loretta.Melby@dca.ca.gov

For over twenty years, McCaulie Feusahrens has dedicated her career to public service having worked in arenas that serve and protect California’s most vulnerable individuals. Her public service experience includes, but is not limited to, working for the Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance, the California Department of Education, and the California Department of Social Services.

McCaulie’s primary focus during her career has been on policy analysis, project management, licensing, and continuous quality improvement. In her prior leadership position, she designed and implemented a new licensing program for clients needing home care services, monitored implementation and program activities, streamlined numerous business processes, and conducted program evaluations with internal and external stakeholders to ensure the most efficient and effective manner of operations.

In her current role as the Chief of the Licensing Division for the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN), McCaulie brings knowledge and experience working across many areas of licensing. She values input from all levels of staff and prides herself on facilitating and supporting innovative and diverse work teams, and encouraging creative thinking. McCaulie’s primary goal is to maintain consistent communication with both internal and external stakeholders to best serve, protect, and advocate for the health and safety of the public by promoting the mission of BRN and ensuring the highest quality of Registered Nurses in the State of California.

McCaulie completed the California Health and Human Services Agency Leadership Academy and other various leadership trainings and she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from California State University, Monterey Bay.

McCaulie.Feusahrens@dca.ca.gov

Marissa Clark has over 10 years of experience working on legislation and policy in the public sector. Her state career includes service with the California Workforce Development Board, Employment Development Department, and the Department of Rehabilitation.

Marissa’s primary area of focus has been overseeing legislative and policy efforts related to the public workforce development system. This includes tracking and analyzing state and federal legislation, developing bill analysis that clearly outline policy, administrative, or budgetary concerns, negotiating bill language, and representing state departments both in person and in writing before members of the legislative branch, administrative branch, and key external stakeholders. In her previous role, Marissa was also in charge of developing California’s Unified Strategic Workforce Development Plan during which she collaborated with a wide variety of stakeholders at the federal, state, and local level in order to establish a framework for guiding public policy, fiscal investment, and operations of the public workforce and education system over a four year period.

In her current role as Chief of Legislative Affairs for the Board of Registered Nursing, Marissa brings her experience with navigating the public policy process from bill introduction through statewide implementation. She thrives in taking a big idea or broad vision, working through how it would be operationalized at the state and local level, and then use that information to draft thoughtful and impactful policy.

Marissa earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Gonzaga University and a Master of Public Administration from the University of San Francisco.

Marissa.Clark@dca.ca.gov