I’ve spent my entire professional career working at and leading non-partisan organizations. I bring to the board a deeply honed ability to treat everyone with respect, ensure all voices are heard, and the recognition that collaboration, compromise, and consensus is the heart of our democratic system.

My professional career has been working in early childhood, K-12, and higher education policy and research at the federal, state, and local levels. This experience, combined with my current role at one of the nation’s leading education innovators, allows me to bring unique insight to the Board as we work collaboratively to capitalize on opportunities from COVID in how we leverage new education models to prepare students for success.

My commitment to providing a school environment that enables educational success and belonging for ALL students is absolute. It is one of the reasons why I chose to work for a higher education institution that primarily serves underserved learners. I bring this core belief to the Board and desire to lend my best efforts in partnership with the Superintendent and Board members to advance the district’s goal of closing outcome gaps to support, prepare and equip ALL students for the future.

As the husband of an educator, I witness every day the struggles and remarkable grit of our school staff. I bring a dedication to collaboration, empathy, value, and respect for all staff – whether a bus driver, librarian, teacher, para, administrator, counselor, or cafeteria staff – and the role they play in caring for and educating our children.

While Vice President at Greater Mankato Growth, I played a leading role in coordinating our strategic planning process, crafting our annual $3.4 million budget to align resources to that plan, and evaluating ROI. I bring that same mindset in partnering with the Superintendent and Board to ensure that the district’s budget aligns with identified priorities and that we hold ourselves accountable to the outcomes we say we want.

During my time at Greater Mankato Growth, I led the organization’s effort to review and ultimately endorse MAP’s most recent capital and operating referendums. As the district looks ahead to a bond referendum in the near future, I bring to the Board solid understanding and experience in how to evaluate our district’s infrastructure needs and growth patterns coupled with an ability to effectively collaborate with district staff and Board members in support of efforts to communicate these needs to the public.

During my time at Greater Mankato Growth, I established deep connections with our business community. The need for strong career pathways is more important now than ever and our business community needs to be an even better partner in those efforts. I am working to partner with the Superintendent and Board to leverage those strong connections to the business community and assist our collective work toward supporting the needs of our students through enlisting additional business participation in pathways programing. These connections also allow me to effectively gauge the “pulse” of key community stakeholders and bring that perspective to the Superintendent and Board.

I’ve spent my entire career representing organizations with public officials. As the school district’s funding and operations are significantly impacted by state and federal policymakers, I look to partner with the Superintendent and Board in supporting and advocating for the needs of our district with policymakers across the political spectrum.