Professional Background

At Penn, I try hard to support faculty, staff, and students to make the world a better place through education - pre-K through adult, locally and globally. I am particularly committed to the President Gutmann’s compact. Within GSE I have responsibility for recruitment and have been using technology to do things like videos and virtual open houses. I also have responsibility for executive education and we’ve got some neat programs – the Mid-career Doctoral Program and Educational Leadership Program for Aspiring Principals to name two. I started a partnership with Teach for America to support the professional development of their corps members here in Philadelphia, and with the Wharton School created a doctoral program for work-based learning executives, the first of its kind. In general I’m charged with driving innovation in education.

I currently am serving as chair of the U.S. delegation to ISO (the Institute for International Standards) to help negotiate global standards and ensure quality in all “non-formal” education. I am also a commissioner for the University Continuing Education Association and sit on the public Policy Council of the American Society for Training and Development. Another fun and fascinating activity is advising the Central Intelligence Agency on its training – I currently sit on the Board of Visitors.

I came to Penn from NYU, where I was responsible for international and new business initiatives; I also created something called “Corporate Learning Services” (CLS). For CLS, I helped several large corporations improve their work-based learning, including American Express, and jetBlue airways. I worked with the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) after 9/11 to set up a corporate university, and I did all the ethics and finance education to help WorldCom emerge from Bankruptcy and the SEC sanctions. My programs won several awards including an APX Award and HR Executive Top 10 Award. I also won U.S. Department of Commerce Presidential “E-Award” for Innovation, a first for a university.

Prior to NYU, I worked at the College Board, where I headed up member services. Before that, I was at ASU, where I helped create the Office of Youth Preparation. I did a lot of work with technology and helped create one of the first charter schools, the Genesis Academy.

In my early days, I worked for the Office of Economic Development in Arizona, conducting economic research for Governor Bruce Babbitt, and I also worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce in Stockholm. My paper on the robotics industry in Sweden was used as the basis for an episode of the T.V. show, “NOVA.”

I also worked for a little while in Germany right after college to improve my German. I worked first for Baron Frederick Karl Freiherr von Hutten in northern Bavaria and then for Wirtschafts und Industriesicherung, Cologne, Germany.