Care that makes you smile.
We are not only partners in business, we are a husband and wife team with a background in healthcare.
But what’s the deal with the pig and penguin? From the beginning of our relationship, pigs and penguins were a part of our love story. In greeting cards, stuffed animals, Christmas ornaments, these animals have been symbols of our partnership and friendship. They are essentially the mascots of our love story. We've been drawn to these two sweet animals all through our relationship, and they've become a part of our love language. When we started on the adventure of opening our own clinic, we knew we wanted the values of love, compassion, kindness, and gentleness to guide the care we give, just as they have guided our relationship with one another. The pig and penguin symbolize those values to us.
Both of us have worked in the insurance-based healthcare space, Tim as a software analyst for electronic medical record systems and Dr. Ludwig as a primary care provider for a large HMO. Over time we became dissatisfied with these systems, how they didn’t meet the needs of our patients nor our family. Together we hope to provide something better through the Direct Specialty Care (DSC) model, and what better way to represent that than the symbols of our love and partnership.
Tim Gray grew up near Syracuse, NY and moved to the West Coast in the early ‘00s to attend school. Before discovering his passion for massage therapy, Tim completed a master’s degree in Medical Informatics at OHSU and spent over 11 years as a senior software analyst at two major healthcare organizations, where he specialized in electronic health record systems. While he gained extensive experience in the healthcare field, his personal journey inspired him to take a new path—one that allowed him to help others in a more direct and meaningful way. In 2022, Tim made the life-changing decision to leave his IT career and pursue massage therapy as part of his own healing journey. After years of working at computer desks with poor ergonomics, he developed chronic headaches that led him to reevaluate his approach to wellness. Through massage therapy and bodywork modalities, Tim found relief and healing, and his experiences sparked the desire to share these benefits with others. Tim also enjoys composing music for meditation and dance, reading about history and playing videogames, and spends his free time with family near Happy Valley, OR.
Dr. Ludwig was raised in Battle Ground, Washington, and felt driven to become a doctor since childhood. She was fascinated by anatomy and physiology, taking every opportunity to expand her knowledge. On one occasion in high school, she gave a presentation on the then-popular Wow chips which were marketed as being fat free because they contained olestra, an ingredient with parallels to the current weight loss medication orlistat. She attended undergrad at the University of Washington where she earned Cum Laude for a bachelors in biochemistry with minors in chemistry and history. She then attended the University of Washington School of Medicine. For her capstone project in the first year, she researched specific diets (Weight Watchers vs Atkins vs Ornish) for weight loss in a rural population and found no difference between them. These early experiences formed a foundation for her later interest in obesity medicine. Dr. Ludwig attended internal medicine residency at Providence Portland Medical Center to study adult general medicine. Beginning in 2011, she worked for Kaiser Permanente at the Rockwood and Mt Scott Medical Offices. In that time, she gained a wide breadth of experience managing obesity-related disease including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and heart failure. She also completed a fellowship in obesity medicine through the Obesity Medicine Association and attained board certification. Dr. Ludwig has been practicing obesity medicine since 2018. She currently holds licenses in Oregon and Washington. In her free time, Dr. Ludwig enjoys gardening, reading, knitting, traveling, and exploring Happy Valley.
