National Conference on Integrated Basic Skills Pathways
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Karen Hunter Anderson
Karen Hunter Anderson is Vice President for
Adult Education & Institutional Support, Illinois
Community College Board. Karen Hunter
Anderson joined the Illinois Community College
Board (ICCB) 13 years ago where she is currently
the Vice President for Adult Education and
Institutional Support. In this position, Dr.
Anderson is responsible for policy planning and
coordination of issues related to adult
education, minority affairs, institutional
research, education technology, and
international education.
Prior to joining the ICCB, Dr. Anderson spent 23
years in college teaching and secondary and
postsecondary administration. Her experience
includes that of a university professor, college
provost, and high school principal. She earned a
Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition in 1986,
speaks four languages, and was one of the
founders of Kentucky TESOL (Teachers of English
as a Second Language). In addition, she is the
author of a college-level textbook for English as
a Second Language students and a contributor
to several college-level writing handbooks
published by Prentice-Hall.
Nate Anderson
Nate Anderson, senior project manager at Jobs
for the Future, works on the Accelerating
Opportunity and Breaking Through initiatives,
both national efforts to improve the success
rates of students enrolled in Adult Basic
Education. As part of Breaking Through, he
provides technical assistance to participating
colleges in Kentucky, Michigan, and North
Carolina, as well as a cohort of Tribal Colleges.
For Accelerating Opportunity, he serves as the
state coach for Kentucky and the national policy
lead for the project. He also works on the
Getting to Scale project, which seeks to capture
and disseminate effective practice for bringing
postsecondary pilot programs to statewide
implementation.
Previously at JFF, Mr. Anderson worked on
Lumina Foundation for Education's Productivity
Agenda, an initiative to improve completion
rates at two-year and four-year public colleges
within the constraints of existing resources. The
focal point of this work was the Time To
Completion project, which focused on
uncovering barriers to timely degree completion
and recommending strategies for accelerating
student progress. Before coming to JFF, he
taught English in Japan to middle school, high
school, and adult students as part of the
Japanese Exchange and Teaching program.
Mr. Anderson holds a B.A. from Bowdoin
College, a Master’s in Japanese history and
Asian Pacific studies from the University of
Toronto, and a Master’s in education from the
Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Steven Baker
Steven Baker is JFF’s vice president of marketing
and communications, leading strategies to
maximize the impact of our services and
advance our vision for improving education and
workforce development in America.
Mr. Baker has more than 25 years of
management and operational experience across
the fields of marketing and communications.
Before joining JFF, he served as both a director
and a vice president of marketing and
communications at Partners HealthCare in
Boston, one of the nation’s leading health care
systems. While at Partners, he led a two-year
rebranding strategy for its non-acute division
and developed numerous marketing and
communications campaigns for Partners
hospitals.
Mr. Baker also served as director of membership
services for the Massachusetts Medical Society,
publishers of The New England Journal of
Medicine. During his tenure, membership in the
organization grew by 18 percent and
significantly increased in diversity. He began his
career in Chicago, where he held marketing and
communications roles with several professional
associations.
Mr. Baker has been actively involved as a
volunteer with a number of AIDS service
organizations, most recently serving in
development roles for Community Servings and
the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.
He also founded the Chicago Chapter of the
Names Project and helped organize the first
national tour of the Names Project AIDS
Memorial Quilt.
Mr. Baker holds a Bachelor’s degree in
journalism from Indiana University.
Brian Bansenauer
Brian Bansenauer is a senior founding faculty at
Cascadia Community College. Dr. Basenauer
graduated in 1992 from the University of
Colorado at Boulder with a Ph.D. in aerospace
engineering, which included extensive work in
computer modeling. He became interested in
learning theory while teaching in the
mathematics and computer science
departments at the University of Wisconsin, Eau
Claire in 1993. He directed the creation of a web
developer program both at North Seattle
Community College (1998) and at Cascadia
(2000), where he currently serves as the
program’s lead faculty.
Jo Ann Baria
Jo Ann Baria is the Dean of Workforce Education
for Pierce College District. Prior to becoming
Dean she was tenured faculty where she taught
Fashion, Business and Marketing and
coordinated the Business Management
program. Ms. Baria served as a Small Business
Development Counselor at Centralia College and
enjoys working with small business and
employers since she was a small business
owner. Ms. Baria has degrees from the
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University of North Texas (UNT) in Fashion
Design and Clothing and Textile Analytics and
pursued her PhD in Retailing from Texas
Women's University (ABD). Ms. Baria taught for
several years at UNT and worked for JCPenney,
a lingerie manufacturer, and an IT company
working on made to measure manufacturing.
She loves hiking, camping and exploring the
Pacific Northwest.
Teresa Boyd
Teresa Boyd, a basic education instructor (IBEST/ESL/ABE), earned a Master of Arts degree
in English as a Second Language from the
University of Arizona, Tucson. She has been a
faculty member at Clark College since 1995 and
an I-BEST instructor in the Nursing Assistant
Certified program since 2007. Ms. Boyd
collaborated on course development for the
Transitions to I-BEST and the On-Ramp to IBEST. She is also involved in the on-going
recruitment for I-BEST programs. For two years,
she has been a member of an interdepartmental
team focused on identifying and reducing
barriers for students transitioning to work and
college level courses. She regularly teaches
ESL/ABE new student orientation classes that
emphasize pathways for Adult Basic Education
students.
Mary Gardner Clagett
Mary Gardner Clagett is the director of
workforce policy for the Workforce and
Education Policy Group at JFF. Ms. Clagett works
with workforce policy leaders and practitioners
from around the country to shape effective
policy recommendations to meet the skills
needs of America’s workers and the U.S.
economy. She and her team work to identify
best and promising practices particularly for
meeting the education, training, and placement
needs of low-skilled workers— translating
practice into policy.
Ms. Clagett has more than 25 years of
experience working with the U.S. Congress in
the fields of education, workforce development,
and human services policy. Before joining JFF,
Ms. Clagett served in a similar capacity for the
National Center on Education and the Economy,
and before that served as the lead staff for
Republicans on the U.S. House Committee on
Education and the Workforce, responsible for
workforce development and career preparation
legislation, including the Workforce Investment
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Act of 1998, the National School-to-Work
Opportunities Act, and numerous other
measures related to the workforce, education,
and human services. She has also served in the
U.S. Senate on the Labor and Human Resources
Committee for West Virginia Senator Jennings
Randolph.
Ms. Clagett earned her undergraduate degree
from Marshall University in Huntington, West
Virginia, and carried out her graduate work at
the George Washington University in
Washington, DC.
Maureen Conway
Maureen Conway is the executive director of
the Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) and
the director of EOP’s Workforce Strategies
Initiative (WSI). As director of the Workforce
Strategies Initiative, she is responsible for
leading a team of researchers and consultants in
a variety of initiatives to identify and advance
strategies that help low-income Americans gain
ground in today's labor market. Under her
guidance, AspenWSI has grown and expanded
its activities to support the field of sectoral
employment development, including projects
that seek to assess the value of workforce
development services to business customers, to
shed light on the ways in which sector programs
support constituents in their struggles to
overcome a range of personal and systemic
barriers, to create a framework for and
document approaches to systems change, to
understand the potential for greater
collaboration among community colleges and
community-based organizations, and much
more.
Ms. Conway’s previous experience includes
consulting work for the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development in
Paris and work for the U.S. Peace Corps, where
she advised on the design, management, and
evaluation of the organization’s economic
development programs in Eastern Europe and
the Former Soviet Union. Her previous work for
the Aspen Institute includes serving as Associate
Director of the Local Employment Approaches
for the Disadvantaged program, a research
project which focused on the range of initiatives
nonprofit community groups engage in to
promote employment opportunities for the
disadvantaged.
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Kathy Lynn Cooper
Kathy Lynn Cooper is a policy associate at the
Adult Basic Education Office. Ms. Cooper has a
life-long history in education and community
service. For the last 17 years, she has been a
policy associate in Adult Basic Education with
the Washington State Board for Community and
Technical Colleges. She brings to this position
educational knowledge and experience from
attending Linfield College and Idaho State
University as a student and from working as a
secondary reading specialist and district
coordinator in Idaho’s public school system. She
also served as Training Coordinator for the
United Way of Seattle.
Her current work in Adult Basic Education
emphasizes external relationships and new
initiatives. She has provided primary support to
the state’s, governor-appointed advisory
council, served as a member of the sub-cabinet
team that implemented welfare reform, and
acted as one of the primary leaders in
developing the integrated basic skills and
professional technical instructional model
known as I-BEST and continues to work on IBEST expansion.
Richard Corak
Richard Corak has worked for Tacoma Goodwill
for the past 20 years and has 32 years’
experience in managing vocational services in
nonprofit agencies. He holds a B.A. in
Psychology, and an MA in Vocational
Rehabilitation Counseling, and has spent most
of his professional career working with
individuals who have significant barriers to
obtaining competitive employment. The director
of Tacoma Goodwill’s Workforce Development
Services, Mr. Corak has helped lead the agency
to expand and reach out to literally thousands of
low-income persons who are marginalized and
face employment and career advancement
challenges: at-risk youth, low-income seniors,
people with disabilities, adults on TANF, exoffenders, and many others.
Mr. Corak has a long, positive history working
with the Tacoma/Pierce County Workforce
Development Council, and other WDCs
throughout the state. Richard has also managed
several programs funded through the federal
Department of Labor and Department of
Education including: YouthBuild, Senior
Community Service Employment Program,
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Community Based Job Training grant in
partnership with Tacoma Community College,
Projects With Industry.
Mr. Corak has been a member of the Pierce
Workforce Development Council’s Youth Council
since 2000. His current contribution to the field
and to the community is in helping to bring to
fruition a Youth Career Center now known as
the REACH (Resources for Education And Career
Help) Center, which features a multi agency
public/not for profit partnership to assist
disconnected, seriously at-risk youth with
education and career assistance.
He is a dedicated professional who has lived
through the ups, downs and passing trends of
the workforce development field and it’s related
funding allocations.
Kathleen Cullen
Kathleen Cullen currently serves as Vice
President for Teaching and Learning of the
nationally recognized Wisconsin Technical
College System which has 16 technical college
districts throughout Wisconsin, offering more
than 300 programs awarding two-year associate
degrees, one- and two-year technical diplomas
and short-term technical diplomas.
In this role she provides leadership and
administrative oversight for the development
and delivery of technical college educational
programs, student services and assessment,
economic and workforce development and
Adult Basic Education.
Prior to this position she was the Assistant Vice
President for the Office of Instruction, where
her primary duties included directing the
development, implementation, modification and
discontinuance of programs and course
offerings in order to meet the needs of
Wisconsin Business, Industry and Labor. In all,
Ms. Cullen has over 25 years of leadership
experience in higher education.
Ms. Cullen has both a Bachelor’s degree and
Master’s of Science in Education from the
University of Wisconsin Madison.
Lisa Edwards
Lisa Edwards is the Global Solutions Officer for
Invista Performance Solutions. Leading this
initiative, she works with businesses and
organizations to design and deliver performance
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solutions that up-skill the workforce and help
companies to gain a competitive advantage. Dr.
Edwards has dedicated her career to education
and helping others to succeed as K-12 faculty,
college faculty, and college administrator. She
has also had the privilege of working at Tacoma
Community College, Pierce College and Bates
Technical College.
Barbara Endel
Barbara Endel co-leads JFF’s Breaking Through
initiative, which enables low-skilled adult
learners to complete technical and occupational
degrees across more than 30 community
colleges nationwide. Before joining JFF, Dr.
Endel served as a policy consultant to the
organization on the Developmental Education
Initiative, a six-state subproject of Achieving the
Dream focused on mining and utilizing data to
improve student success in community colleges.
Previously, Dr. Endel helped the Greater
Cincinnati Workforce Network create career
pathways for over 3,000 participants through a
project funded by the National Fund for
Workforce Solutions.
Dr. Endel has also developed career pathways
and managed policy initiatives for
KnowledgeWorks Foundation and designed and
implemented community college assessments
and research solutions for ACT. She has a
Master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.
She earned her Bachelor’s from The College of
Wooster in Ohio.
Louisa Erickson
Louisa Erickson is Program Administrator for
Workforce Education at the Washington State
Board for Community and Technical Colleges
(SBCTC), where she serves as the agency lead for
I-BEST (Integrated Basic Education and Skills
Training) programs in Washington State, and
provides technical assistance to other states and
their educational institutions seeking to
replicate I-BEST. Before joining SBCTC, Ms.
Erickson was with the WA State Department of
Commerce where she worked closely with policy
makers at the Department of Social and Health
Services, the Department of Corrections, the
Department of Early Learning and the Office of
the Superintendent of Public Instruction and
other key stakeholders to develop policy and
program recommendations for the Legislature
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regarding offender reentry and children and
families with incarcerated parents.
Ms. Erickson has over 15 years’ experience
successfully designing, implementing, and
managing programs designed to remove
barriers to success for at-risk youth and adult
populations. Her areas of professional emphasis
and expertise include organizational and
community assessment, policy analysis and
development, community collaboration and
partnership building, prevention based
programming, offender reentry, and
employment and training programs. She has led
communities to being recognized as one of the
100 Best Communities for Young People on
three occasions, and consulted with the Case
Foundation to coach 10 U.S. communities in
designing and implementing a Citizen Centered
Approach to improving community outcomes.
Lauren Eyster
Lauren Eyster, research associate at the Urban
Institute and Project Director/Implementation
co-lead for the Accelerating Opportunity
Evaluation, provides over 15 years of experience
in research and evaluation in the policy areas of
workforce development, postsecondary
education, welfare, child welfare, and food
stamps. In these areas, she conducts
quantitative and qualitative research and
analysis with a focus on implementation
research.
Ms. Eyster has extensive knowledge of the
workforce system under the Workforce
Investment Act (WIA) and how it interacts with
community colleges. She recently served as
Project Director for the evaluation of the High
Growth Job Training Initiative and the
evaluation of the Community-Based Job Training
Grants, two DOL demonstration programs that
funded over 500 grants to develop innovations
for industry-focused job training. Ms. Eyster is a
task leader and a subject matter expert for two
studies on the Health Profession Opportunity
Grants, HHS-funded grants to develop
innovative strategies for helping disadvantaged
individuals train for and find employment in the
health care sector. She has authored many
publications on career pathways, community
colleges, green jobs, registered apprenticeship,
and older workers.
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Ms. Eyster earned a Master’s in Public Policy
from Johns Hopkins University and is currently a
Ph.D. candidate in public policy and public
administration at George Washington
University.
Kent Fischer
Kent Fischer joined GMMB as a vice president in
2009 after a 15-year career as one of the
nation’s top education writers. Mr. Fischer helps
lead GMMB’s work with the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation U.S. Program by providing
strategic issues advocacy, communications
counsel, and earned media support. Mr. Fischer
remains close to journalism and reporters as a
vice president of the Board of Directors of the
National Education Writer’s Association, the
professional organization of reporters covering
America’s schools and education issues. He has
been an active member of EWA since 1994, and
a member of the organization’s governing board
since 2003.
Prior to joining GMMB, Mr. Fischer wrote for
The Dallas Morning News, where he was named
the country’s top education blogger in 2008,
and his investigative reporting resulted in felony
convictions of several school employees for
fraud and abuse. Before that, Mr. Fischer
covered education for the St. Petersburg Times
in Florida, as well as for newspapers in Kentucky
and New Hampshire.
Mr. Fischer is a graduate of Syracuse University,
and lives in Seattle with his wife and two young
sons.
Blake Flanders
Blake Flanders serves as Vice President for
Workforce Development for the Kansas Board of
Regents. In this role, he is the state leader for
issues involving the postsecondary education
and training system in the development of a
skilled workforce. Dr. Flanders’ scope of
responsibility includes developing a policy
agenda for postsecondary technical education,
curriculum evaluation, system funding,
benchmarks and accountability, and the
management of federal initiatives. He also
serves as a member of the Kansasworks State
Workforce Board.
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Maria Flynn
As vice president of JFF’s Building Economic
Opportunity Group, Maria Flynn leads JFF’s work
to help low-skilled adults advance to familysustaining careers, while enabling employers to
build and sustain a productive workforce. Flynn
guides the activities of several key JFF projects
and partnerships, including the National Fund
for Workforce Solutions, Jobs to Careers, and
Breaking Through.
Ms. Flynn has nearly 20 years of experience in
workforce development. As administrator of the
Office of Policy Development and Research in
the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and
Training Administration, she oversaw the
assessment and development of employment
and training policies, managed the design of the
agency’s research and evaluation strategy, and
provided direct support to agency budget and
appropriations activities. Ms. Flynn’s
responsibilities at the Labor Department
included coordinating the agency’s legislative,
regulatory, and international affairs agendas
and outreach to philanthropic organizations. As
the agency’s policy director, Ms. Flynn played a
key role in the development and
implementation of the Workforce Innovation in
Regional Economic Development
Initiative (WIRED). Within the Employment and
Training Administration, she led the Division of
One-Stop Operations, where she developed the
policy and technical assistance framework
necessary to enable states and communities to
establish comprehensive One-Stop systems
designed to deliver quality services to job
seekers, workers, and employers. She also
served as team leader for the interagency policy
group charged with implementing the
Workforce Investment Act of 1998. In the 1990s,
Ms. Flynn played key roles in the National
School-to-Work initiative and in the launch of
the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving
Necessary Skills (SCANS) Initiative.
Ms. Flynn earned her Bachelor’s in international
relations and economics at Saint Joseph’s
University in Philadelphia and a Master’s of
Government Administration at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Jennifer Foster
Jennifer Foster is the Senior Director for Adult
Education and Family Literacy/State Director for
GED Testing Administration at the Illinois
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Community College Board (ICCB). She serves as
the State Director for Adult Education and
Family Literacy for Illinois and GED Testing. Ms.
Foster has been with the ICCB for the past 11
years and in adult education for more than 22
years. She oversees approximately 100 state
and federally funded Adult Education and Family
Literacy programs as well as 78 GED Testing
Centers in Illinois. Ms. Foster participates as a
partner in the Illinois Shifting Gears Initiative, a
Joyce Foundation sponsored project, serves as
on the Executive Committee of the National
Professional Development Consortium and the
National Council of State Directors of Adult
Education, the National Career Pathway
Technical Work Group, the National Reporting
Standards Technical Work Group, and has
recently worked with the system of adult
education to release a new Strategic Plan for
Adult Education titled, “Creating Pathways for
Adult Learners”. She also has worked on several
transition initiatives that examine using “Bridge
Programs” as a method of linking more students
without a high school diploma or who lack
English language skills to postsecondary
education occupational pathway programs. Ms.
Foster is currently working as the Project
Coordinator for the Illinois Accelerating
Opportunity Initiative, Jobs for the Future
Initiative – Gates Foundation Project.
Sandy Goodman
Sandy Goodman is the Director of Career
Pathways for the National College Transition
Network. Her work includes designing and
overseeing college transition and career
pathways initiatives and providing technical
assistance and professional development to
individual programs and state adult education
systems. In 2011, Ms. Goodman led the National
Career Awareness Project, funded by the U.S.
Department of Education, Office of Vocational
and Adult Education and offered in 16 states.
Through this project, Ms. Goodman assisted
state teams in developing dissemination plans
for scaling-up professional development to
incorporate career awareness and planning
activities into Adult Basic Education instruction
and counseling activities.
Ms. Goodman is the lead author of the College
Transition Toolkit and editor of the Integrating
Career Awareness into the ABE & ESOL
Classroom curriculum guide. She wrote the two
Accelerating Opportunity online courses on
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providing comprehensive supports: Finding True
North – The Role of the Navigator; and
Navigating Pathways to Opportunity. Both of
these courses have recently launched and
are open for enrollment.
Ms. Goodman has a B.A. in Women's
Studies/Social Thought and Political Economy
from the University of Massachusetts at
Amherst and an M.P.A. from the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University.
Ellen Hewett
Ellen Hewett is the Director of the National
College Transition Network (NCTN) at World
Education, Inc. Her experience includes coaching
and training for system-wide professional
development to support the design and
implementation of college and career readiness
programs; and increasing the visibility of
transition-related policy and practice for the
adult education field. Ms. Hewett is a skilled
facilitator with the ability to build organizational
learning and capacity within a system to enable
adult learners to earn a credential that leads to
jobs with family-sustaining wages.
Prior to joining NCTN, Ms. Hewett worked for
over 25 years with nontraditional college
students as an administrator and faculty
member at Springfield College. Her work in
postsecondary education focused on developing
administrative, curricular and support services
aimed at promoting an adult-centered
institutional culture, and forming partnerships
with state and local stakeholders.
Ms. Hewett earned her undergraduate degree in
political science from McGill University and a
graduate degree from Southern New Hampshire
University in Human Services Administration.
She has completed all of her coursework for a
doctorate in adult education at Teachers
College, Columbia University.
James Jacobs
James Jacobs assumed the presidency of
Macomb Community College on July 1, 2008.
Prior to his appointment, he concurrently served
as director for the Center for Workforce
Development and Policy at the college, and as
the associate director, Community College
Research Center (CCRC), Teachers College,
Columbia University.
Dr. Jacobs has more than 40 years’ experience
at Macomb, joining the college in 1967. He has
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taught social science, political science and
economics. He has specialized in the areas of
workforce skills and technology, economic
development, worker retraining, and
community college workforce development, and
is widely published in these areas of expertise.
Dr. Jacobs has conducted research, developed
programs and consulted on workforce
development and community college issues at
the national, state and local levels. During his
seven years with the CCRC, he was responsible
for many of the projects in the area of
workforce development, including a major study
on noncredit workforce development.
He is the past president of the National Council
for Workforce Education, a national
postsecondary organization of occupational
education and workforce development
specialists, and a member of the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership Advisory Board of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
and the National Assessment of Career and
Technical Education. He is also a member of the
Community College Advisory Panel to the
Educational Testing Service in Princeton New
Jersey.
Dr. Jacobs served as part of the research staff
and a report writer for the Cherry Commission
(Lt. Governor’s Commission on Higher Education
& Economic Growth) report, and was a member
of the Visioning Task Force for Macomb County,
a group convened by the board of
commissioners to proactively plan for the future
of the county. For the past 25 he has presented
an Economic Forecast of Macomb County for
the coalition of Macomb County chambers.
Dr. Jacobs earned his Ph.D. from Princeton
University and has served on a number of
community boards, including Peoples State
Bank, Macomb Inter-Faith Action Center, United
Way and St. John Hospital. He is also a member
of the board of directors of the Community
College Research Center and the Center for
Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Richard Kazis
Richard Kazis leads JFF’s policy and advocacy
efforts. Since joining JFF in the early 1990s, his
areas of focus have included: school-to-career
models and policy; strategies for improving
outcomes for low-income community college
students; state policies to promote college and
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career readiness for struggling students; policies
to promote low-wage worker advancement; and
the emerging role of labor-market
intermediaries in workforce development.
Mr. Kazis oversees JFF’s efforts to support state
level improvement in community college
student success and completion, particularly for
low-income students, through our collaboration
with Achieving the Dream, Inc. and our
involvement in two multistate initiatives: the
Developmental Education Initiative and
Completion By Design. Richard also coordinates
JFF’s efforts to promote federal and state
policies that identify, promote, and expand
effective school models for struggling high
school-aged students, with a particular focus on
approaches that blend secondary and
postsecondary learning.
Mr. Kazis has taught at an alternative high
school for returning dropouts. He has also
supervised a Neighborhood Youth Corps
program, helped organize fast-food workers,
managed a cooperative urban food production
wholesaler, supported labor-environmental jobs
coalitions, and studied informal, experiential
learning in Israel. He serves on the boards of the
Institute for College Access and Success and the
Workforce Strategy Center.
Mr. Kazis is a graduate of Harvard College and
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jeremy Kelley
As project manager in JFF’s Building Economic
Opportunity Group, Jeremy Kelley works on
Breaking Through, an initiative enabling adults
with less-than-eighth-grade skills to prepare for
and succeed in community college technical
programs. He helps to identify best practices
and program models for advancing adults
through postsecondary education, as well as
policies that can promote these practices and
models. His focus is on helping Breaking
Through community colleges in Kentucky,
Michigan, and North Carolina to enable adults
who already have accumulated some college
credit to earn degrees. This work is part of JFF’s
participation in Lumina Foundation for
Education’s Adult Degree Completion strategy.
Before coming to JFF, Mr. Kelley was a project
coordinator for the Suffolk County District
Attorney’s Safe Neighborhood Initiative. He
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organized and implemented community action
initiatives focusing on public safety matters,
developed grant applications, managed the
disbursement of grant funding, and co-directed
a reentry program for ex-criminal offenders.
Mr. Kelley earned his B.A. in law, jurisprudence,
and social thought from Amherst College.
Jon M. Kerr
Jon M. Kerr recently joined the Washington
State Board for Community and Technical
Colleges after his tenure as the Dean of
Instructional Programs and Library Director at
Lower Columbia College in Washington State.
There he administered the Transitional Studies
(I-BEST, ABE, GED, ESL, and I-TRANS);
Humanities; WorkFirst, High School Completion;
Library Services; Tutoring Services; and Bridges
to Success programs. His initial work with
Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training
was as founding Director of I-BEST for the Pierce
College District. Since then Mr. Kerr has become
a champion in promoting the initiative and
providing trainings throughout Washington and
in several states across the nation. As I-BEST
Director, Mr. Kerr was responsible for
developing and directing all proposed and
mandated District Integrated Basic Skills and IBEST programs, including coordination of
outreach and external communications;
advising, recruitment, and retention;
instructional professional development;
curriculum development and data management.
He worked with the I-BEST and I-TRANS teams
at Lower Columbia College to pilot the first
academic I-BEST program in the nation as well
as one of the I-BEST for Developmental
Education pilots in Washington. He has worked
as an instructor, coordinator, director, and dean
in secondary education, private language
institutes, community colleges, and university
graduate programs for over 36 years. He holds
undergraduate and graduate degrees in theatre
and education from Central Washington
University.
Jeff Landis
Jeff Landis develops and implements messaging,
communications plans, and public/media
relations activities that promote the value of
JFF’s education and workforce solutions to key
stakeholders nationwide.
Mr. Landis has conceived, created, and managed
strategic communications and media relations
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programs for more than 25 years. He has placed
stories with the media on a national, regional,
and local level: from small weekly newspapers
to national television programs such as CNN,
Oprah, Good Morning America, and The Tonight
Show.
Before joining JFF, Mr. Landis served as director
of corporate communications at First
Marblehead Corporation, where he played a
leading role in launching smartborrowing.org, a
website providing guidance to students and
parents on how to navigate the process of
paying for college. He also worked at Sun Life
Financial as its first full-time media relations
manager, developing an industry thoughtleadership program by placing articles in many
trade publications. Mr. Landis has been
instrumental in the growth of community
relations programs, having managed the
publicity efforts of the Doug Flutie Jr.
Foundation for Autism and The Boston
Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk.
Mr. Landis has a Bachelor’s in speech and
communications studies from Emerson College.
Anne Marie Leland
Anne Marie Leland is a lifelong educator with
extensive experience in Adult Basic Education
and the K-12 field with both teaching and
administrative experience. She is currently cofacilitating the Minnesota FastTRAC – Adult
Career Pathway Initiative, which is to provide
increased opportunities for low-wage,
educationally underprepared adults to increase
their basic and occupational skills and to acquire
credentials that lead to family supporting
employment. Leland is responsible for providing
collaboration between ABE and state and local
human service, higher education and workforcerelated entities. Leland was one of the main
author’s on the Minnesota ABE Impact Report,
“An Investment that Works: The Impact of Adult
Basic Education in Minnesota.”
Israel David Mendoza
Israel David Mendoza is third oldest of eleven
children in a farmworker family. He worked for
Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers
Union in Seattle, Washington and Dallas, Texas.
He started with the Employment Security
Department in 1972 as a participant in the
Emergency Employment Act program as a
seasonal assistant interviewer. From that
Speaker Biographies
position he literally worked his way up the
agency career ladder to Acting Commissioner in
1990. During that time, he worked on welfare
reform, employment and training programs,
business resource programs, policy
development, communications, legislative
activities, and constituent relationships for the
Employment Security Department. He has been
the Washington State Director of the Adult Basic
Education at the State Board for Community and
Technical Colleges since 1996. He is past chair of
the National Council of State Directors of Adult
Education, a position he has held twice. Mr.
Mendoza is a graduate of the Program for
Senior Executives in state and local government
at the John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University. He attended Washington
State University and received a Bachelor of Arts
degree from The Evergreen State College where
he emphasized studies in economics and
minority business development.
Margarete Klingner Morley
Margarete Klingner Morley is currently working
at Fayetteville Technical Community College.
She is the Special Populations/Projects
Coordinator in College and Career Readiness. In
this capacity she has been working with the
Breaking Through initiative coordinating
program developments and implementations to
improve student retention and success. She has
participated in various training opportunities
offered through JFF and provided staff
development programs based on the training
received at CCR.
Judy Mortrude
Judy Mortrude has over 20 years of experience
developing, delivering and managing
educational projects for workforce
development, particularly with low-literacy,
high-barrier populations. Ms. Mortrude was the
lead administrator for Minnesota’s largest Adult
Basic Education consortium and oversaw
county, state, and federal grants including
Functional Work English, Office of Refugee
Resettlement, EL/Civics, and a variety of adult
career pathway grants. Currently, Judy staffs the
FastTRAC cross-system initiative, seeking to
align the workforce development, Adult Basic
Education, and technical & community colleges.
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Gloria Cross Mwase
Gloria Cross Mwase is a program director at Jobs
for the Future. Her work focuses on helping lowskilled adults advance to family-sustaining
careers, while enabling employers to build and
sustain a productive workforce. Her projects
include Breaking Through, enabling adults with
less-than-eighth-grade skills to prepare for and
succeed in community college technical
programs. She also leads the capacity-building
and peer-learning efforts of the National Fund
for Workforce Solutions, which supports local
funding collaboratives investing in workforce
partnerships that recruit, train, place, retain,
and advance new and incumbent workers in key
industry sectors.
Dr. Mwase brings a decade of experience
managing projects in the nonprofit sector. Her
publications include studies that explore the
role of community-based organizations in
employment training and economic
development, as well as an analysis of state
policies affecting remedial instruction for adults.
Dr. Mwase has provided technical assistance to
a number of states and colleges as part of the
Breaking Through and Connecting Literacy to
Work initiatives, guiding the development of
innovative programs and practices. For ABE to
Credentials, Dr. Mwase will be sharing her
expertise with North Carolina.
Before coming to JFF, Dr. Mwase was a local
representative for the Annie E. Casey
Foundation, where she served on the Funders
Group of SkillWorks, a workforce intermediary
in Boston that is now part of the National Fund
for Workforce Solutions.
Dr. Mwase has taught at Cambridge College and
the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She
earned a B.A. in economics from Tougaloo
College and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in public
policy from the University of Massachusetts,
Boston.
Rachel Pleasants
Rachel Pleasants is a senior project manager for
Breaking Through, JFF’s collaboration with
National Council for Workforce Education to
create opportunities for adults with little
education to prepare for and succeed in college
technical programs. She also works on
Accelerating Opportunity: A Breaking Through
Speaker Biographies
initiative, which seeks to fundamentally change
the way Adult Basic Education is delivered in 11
states, and to ensure that those states’ policies
encourage dramatically improved student
outcomes in terms of completing credentials of
value in the labor market. Before joining JFF, Ms. Pleasants worked in K-12
education as a program administrator and
afterschool instructor. She also has worked with
a number of career development programs for
high school students, including the Met School
in Providence, Rhode Island, and Just-A-Start in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ms. Pleasants has a Master’s in education policy
and management from the Harvard Graduate
School of Education. She has a Bachelor’s of Fine
Arts in painting and a Bachelor’s in Spanish from
the University of Iowa.
Danielle Powell
Danielle Powell is a full-time, tenured faculty
member of Cascadia Community College. She
holds a Master of Arts in Communication and a
Master of Divinity from Wake Forest University,
as well as a Bachelor of Science in Speech
Communication from James Madison University.
Ms. Powell has extensive college level teaching
experience in the communication field, having
taught at James Madison University, Wake
Forest University, Elon University, University of
Mary Washington, Davidson County Community
College, and Germanna Community College. She
is a member of the National Communication
Association. In addition to her teaching
experience, Ms. Powell has worked with two
nonprofit organizations and holds a nonprofit
management certificate from the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro.
Wendy Price
Wendy Price is currently the Director of Grants
at South Seattle Community College where she
develops and manages multiple federal, state,
and privately funded campus-wide initiatives.
Previous to this role, Ms. Price served as the
Associate Director in Workforce Education for
over 10 years, teaching, recruiting, coordinating
and managing short-term training programs
targeted at serving disadvantaged students. She
works extensively with external community,
civic, business, and government partners to
achieve collaboration and leverage to serve
students. She has been involved in the Breaking
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Through initiative since 2006. Ms. Price earned
her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from
the University of Oregon.
Jannette Rasque
Jannette Rasque is a student at Cascadia
Community College. She has a Diploma in
Computer Programming from New York
University in New York City. She has over 10
years’ experience in different aspects of
customer service. She has completed
Certificates in Web Foundations, Database
Design, and is currently finishing up a Certificate
in User Interface Development. She is currently
pursuing a degree in Web Applications
Technology
Sarah Reed
Sarah Reed has over 12 years’ experience in the
Human Resources field. She has been with
Starbucks for 11 years and oversees their
educational assistance program. Prior to this
role she has also worked within staffing,
internship and college recruitment and
generalist functions.
Most recently Ms. Reed has created and
implemented Starbucks U, a new and innovative
program within Starbucks to support the
educational and tuition needs for their partners
(employees). This creative approach includes
partners receiving college credits for job
training, tuition reimbursement, university
partnerships, student discounts, education and
career counseling, and support for Prior
Learning Assessment.
Ms. Reed also participates locally in the NW
Tuition Assistance Forum, Learn and Earn Task
force, Highline Community College advisory
board and many other employer groups focused
on educational assistance. She holds her
undergraduate degree from Central Washington
University where she studied Industrial
Organizational Psychology and minored in
Sociology.
Les Rivera
Les Rivera is an ESL professor (ESL/GED Pre IBEST Health Occupations Class). Mr. Rivera
graduated from the University of Portland,
Oregon, with a B.A. in Education. He graduated
from San Francisco State University with an M.A.
in English with a Concentration in Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages. He has
been teaching the Pre I-BEST Health
Occupations Career Exploration and Medical
Speaker Biographies
Language Class since 2007. In 2007, 2008, and
2009, he taught this class with two other
content instructors. As a result of budget cuts,
he has been teaching this class alone in 2010,
2011, and 2012. In winter 2013, this class will
transform into an I-BEST class that will be a
bridge into the Core Health Care Occupations
Programs’ Prerequisites.
With 30 years of teaching experience from ESL
grades 4-8, for-profit business college, and
ESL/GED adult student classes at community
colleges, he has worked with underprepared
ESL/GED adults for many years and is eager to
help give them skills that they need to transition
to work and/or to college-level courses.
Kimberly Russell
Kimberly Russell is Acting Associate Director of
Basic Education/Instructor (I-BEST/ESL/ABE).
She graduated from the University of Minnesota
with a degree in Linguistics, specializing in Adult
English as a Second Language Education. She
has been an I-BEST instructor in Welding,
Transitions to I-BEST, and recently worked to
bring an On-Ramp to I-BEST class into the I-BEST
pathway at Clark College. She has been an active
advocate of transitioning students further and
faster through I-BEST and other pathways to
college and work. For the last two years, she has
been part of an interdepartmental team to
identify and reduce barriers to transition to
work and college at Clark College. With 25 years
in the field of education, she enthusiastically
believes in working with students to make
career pathways a reality.
Jenny Schanker
Jenny Schanker joined the MCCA as Associate
Director for the Center for Student Success in
July, 2011. She is on loan from her position as a
faculty member at Lake Michigan College until
2013. At LMC, Dr. Schanker served as chair of
Transitional Studies and the Student Success
Steering Council as well as Project Director for
Achieving the Dream and Breaking Through. She
holds an M.A. in English from DePaul University
and received her Ed.D. in Community College
Leadership from National-Louis University in
2011.
Marléna Sessions
Marléna Sessions is the chief executive officer of
the Workforce Development Council of SeattleKing County, a nonprofit workforce “think tank”
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and grantmaking organization whose mission is
to ensure a strong economy as well as a path to
self-sufficiency for every resident.
Ms. Sessions served as Chief Operations Officer
of the Workforce Development Council from
2000 until April 2009. She has considerable
expertise in the areas of organizational
development and designing and implementing
top-quality employment and training programs.
Before joining the WDC in 1996, she
coordinated and managed the highly successful
education, employment and training programs
of Career Path Services in Spokane.
Ms. Sessions is on the board of trustees of the
national Workforce Development Council of the
U.S. Conference of Mayors and serves as its first
Vice President and Youth Committee National
Chair. She is also a member of the High-Skills
Consortium of Jobs for the Future.
Locally, Ms. Sessions is the secretary and an
executive committee member of
enterpriseSeattle, the area’s economic
development agency, as well as a member of
the Seattle Community Colleges Chancellor’s
Advisory Council and the visiting committee of
UW Educational Outreach (the continuing
education branch of the University of
Washington).
Ms. Sessions holds a Master’s degree in
organizational leadership from Gonzaga
University and a Bachelor of Arts in political
science from Whitworth University. She lives in
Issaquah, Washington, with her husband and
two children.
Dixie Simmons
Dixie Simmons is the Director of Workforce
Education and Economic Development at the
Washington State Board for Community and
Technical Colleges. Previously, Dr. Simmons was
Vice President of Learning at the Institute for
Extended Learning, Spokane Community
Colleges. She has also served as Executive Dean
of Economic Development for Clover Park
Technical College, program associate for the
State Board for Community and Technical
Colleges, Director of Workforce Training at
Olympic College, grant administrator and trainer
for Kansas City Kansas Community College,
Director of Student Development at Pierce
College, career advisor for Pierce College and
Community College of the Air Force, and
Speaker Biographies
program registrar for the High School
Completion Program at Big Bend Community
College.
Kurt Simmons
Kurt Simmons is the Director of Professional
Services for the Workforce Development
Council, Snohomish County. Mr. Simmons
provides adult learners the individual program
advising and tracking needed to negotiate
between instructional programs, supplemental
instructional services, academic advisors,
student services, and community resources to
meet individual needs. He also works closely
with community college staff and Workforce
Investment Act contractors to conduct outreach,
recruitment, interviewing, and orientation for
students. Part of Mr. Simmons’ responsibilities
also includes assisting in employment
placement for students finishing the program.
Lisa Soricone
Lisa Soricone serves on JFF’s Building Economic
Opportunity Group, helping low-skilled adults
advance to family-sustaining careers, while
enabling employers to build and sustain a
productive workforce. Specifically, she will help
evaluate the success of programs that help
adults succeed in community college:
Accelerating Opportunity and the Adult Degree
Completion Project.
Before joining JFF, Dr. Soricone was a research
and evaluation analyst at Commonwealth
Corporation where she evaluated workforce
development programs in Massachusetts,
including the Workforce Competiveness Trust
Fund and the Massachusetts Learn at Work
Program. Before that, she served as research
associate for the National Center for the Study
of Adult Learning and Literacy, where she
coauthored a series of guides for training adult
education practitioners on how to integrate
health literacy skill development into ABE/ESOL.
Dr. Soricone has a doctorate in Community
Education and Lifelong Learning from Harvard
University, a Master’s in International Education
(also from Harvard), a degree in literature,
linguistics, and French as a foreign language
from Université Paul Valery in France, and a
Bachelor’s in French and political science from
Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
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Amy Tam
Amy Tam is an ABE/GED/ESL transition
specialist. She graduated from the University of
Washington with her Bachelor of Arts in
Communication and Political Science. She serves
as a Basic Skills advisor at Clark College. Her area
of expertise includes helping Adult Basic
Education and English as a Second Language
students identify career goals after Basic Skills
completion, and supporting students seeking to
enter postsecondary education. In addition to
her work as an advisor, she is involved with the
recruitment of all I-BEST programs at Clark
College, and has helped develop the current
application process for incoming I-BEST
students.
Zoe Thompson
Zoe Thompson is an Associate Director for
Workforce Development at the Kansas Board of
Regents and serves as the State Coordinator for
Accelerating Opportunity: Kansas (AO-K). In
Kansas, AO-K leverages strong interagency
collaboration towards transformation of the
system for adults with low skills – opportunities
for industry credentials attached to immediate
jobs with career pathways, accelerated by
simultaneous Adult Basic Education and career
technical education skills instruction. Thompson
has a Bachelor of Science in Law and a Juris
Doctor from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in
San Diego, California. She also earned an
Associate Degree from Palomar Community
College in San Marcos, California.
Johan E. Uvin
Johan E. Uvin joined the Department of
Education in December 2009 as the Senior
Policy Advisor to Assistant Secretary, Brenda
Dann-Messier in the Office of Vocational and
Adult Education (OVAE). In June 2011, Dr. Uvin
was appointed to the position of Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Policy and Strategic
Initiatives within OVAE.
Prior to his appointment, he led the Rhode
Island state office that oversees adult education,
career and technical education, and GED testing.
During his tenure, he established standards for
students, teachers, and programs. He
introduced outcome management and
performance-based funding to providers. Dr.
Uvin worked closely with partner organizations
to increase the number of programs combining
education and training related to career
Speaker Biographies
pathways in critical and emerging employment
sectors. He also assisted local governments in
developing pathways out of poverty for lowskilled residents. Dr. Uvin established multiple
strategic partnerships and leveraged coinvestments to create college transition
opportunities for adults, provide integrated
education and career technical training for outof-school youth and adults, and create an elearning effort.
Dr. Uvin holds a doctorate in Administration,
Planning, and Social Policy and a Master’s in
International Education from Harvard
University. He also holds a Master of Arts in
Teaching English to Speakers of Other
Languages from the School for International
Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. In recent
years, he was acknowledged by the hospitality
and long-term care industries in Rhode Island
for his contributions to creating career pathways
for low-skilled adults in these sectors.
When he is not in DC, he lives in Roslindale,
Massachusetts, with his wife Alison Simmons
and his twin sons Stephen and Elliot.
Roger Walker
Roger Walker is a program manager at Group
Health Cooperative. He is involved with several
educational initiatives for the Cooperative,
including promotion and coordination of the RN
to BS program for Group Health staff, working
with clinical adjunct faculty, assisting with
tuition support for employees, and coordinating
courses, classrooms, communications, and
materials for various programs. He has worked
with several cohorts including MA to LPN, nonclinical staff to MA, and most recently, an RN
program for entry-level employees. Mr. Walker
has been a Group Health employee for over 11
years. He previously taught 30 years for Seattle
Public Schools.
Holly Watson
Holly Watson currently serves as WorkForce
Central’s Chief Administrative Officer. She has
over 25 years’ experience of senior level
managerial and leadership experience in
federally funded workforce development
programs. Her experience includes employment
and training grants management, statewide
policy development and compliance audits and
performance oversight. She collaborated with
state and federal agencies in implementing and
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evaluating several statewide welfare reform
programs that focused on serving low-income
families to reach self-sufficiency.
She is currently responsible for day-to-day
management of WorkForce Central, which
includes direct oversight of administrative,
operations and performance and compliance
departments.
She has a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree from the
Evergreen State College where she studied
Organization Management. She lives in Olympia
with her husband.
Alexandra “Lexie” Waugh
Alexandra Waugh helps manage JFF projects
focused on helping low-income adults train for
and succeed in jobs with career advancement
potential. This work includes a focus on “green”
jobs through JFF’s Pathways Out of Poverty and
GreenWays initiatives. She has also helped JFF
research and document the latest practices and
state policies for strengthening Adult Basic
Education and promoting adults’ college degree
completion rates in the Breaking Through
project.
Ms. Waugh has always helped promote the
advancement of underrepresented populations.
Before JFF, she helped conduct a five-year
research project at Simmons College on disabled
youths’ transitions into adulthood. She has also
served under Massachusetts State Senator
Cynthia Creem at the Barbara Lee Family
Foundation, an organization dedicated to
advancing women’s representation in politics
and contemporary art.
Ms. Waugh has a Master’s of Public Policy from
Brandeis University and a Bachelor’s in sociology
from Simmons College.
Speaker Biographies
Bryan Wilson
Bryan Wilson is the Deputy Director of the
Washington State Workforce Board and has
served on staff of the Board since 1993,
overseeing policy, legislative activities, research,
and performance accountability. Prior to joining
the Workforce Board, he served as Governor
Gardner’s policy advisor on workforce and
vocational education issues and supported the
Governor in the creation of the technical
colleges, the Worker Retraining Program, the
Office of Adult Literacy, and the Workforce
Board. Earlier, Dr. Wilson served as a policy
analyst for the Washington State House of
Representatives on workforce, economic
development, and other issues. He holds a
doctorate in political economy from Rutgers
University.
Jan Yoshiwara
Jan Yoshiwara currently serves as Deputy
Executive Director of Education Division at the
Washington State Board for Community and
Technical Colleges. She has been with the State
Board since 1984. Her primary responsibility is
education policy on behalf of the community
and technical college system. She works with
college presidents and vice presidents for
instruction and for student services, university
provosts, state superintendent of public
instruction, legislators and governor’s policy
staff on education goals, strategies and policy
for the community and technical college system.
Areas of responsibility include workforce
development, Adult Basic Education, academic
transfer, eLearning, student services, student
achievement, and education research. She
received her B.S. in Zoology from the University
of California, Davis and a M.Ed. from Western
Washington University
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