Team

David Scott Clegg has served as a visionary entrepreneur, leader in policy and practice reform across the global education spectrum for more than 25 years. He is the Founder and CEO of UNITE. Formerly, he served as Managing Director of The HEAD Foundation in its initiation, planning and early execution phases. The HEAD Foundation is a Singapore-based think tank with its focus on education as a primary catalyst in human capital and societal development, sustainability. During his time there, HEAD was considered an innovator in research and activity in advancing education in the Asia-Pacific.

Mr. Clegg served as President and Vice Chairman of Nobel Learning Communities, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: NLCI), the first national private school system in the United States, with nearly 200 schools and 5,000 educators. Nobel Learning Communities was a pioneer in the creation of schools and programs for primarily middle income, working families. Nobel focused on the individual nature and learning styles of both its mainstream and special needs students, with its storied success as a national platform serving as a case study at Harvard Business School in innovation not only of a company but of an ‘industry.’

Mr. Clegg was involved in the early adoption of internet-based solutions in education in the 1990′s and early 2000′s. He was a Partner and Senior Executive with EdGate.com, one of the first classroom portals for the K-12 sector. EdGate developed tools and aggregated education content, resources while providing customized, online learning communities for schools, districts and states across the US. His international contributions include his work with and through the United Nations affiliate NGO community, addressing quality and access issues in youth education. Additionally, Mr. Clegg was senior strategist for The World Bank sponsored African Virtual University project, providing degree bearing, higher education programs from the US and Europe to what is currently over 50 institutions throughout 27 participating African nations. He has provided strategic direction, advisory services and support for large-scale systems and solutions in Asia, from the Middle East to China. His experience extends up and down the education vertical, from early childhood to adult education and training; as well as cross-cultural and curricular with a global view on method, means and outcomes.

David Scott Clegg is the author of the award-winning novel The Longest Distance; has conducted nearly 100 interviews globally; and is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, Beijing Review and other international publications. His unique background as both a learned scholar and practitioner provides the requisite balance to be applied when envisioning and architecting education for the 21^st century learner and society.

Anabel Jensen, Ph.D., is the Founding President of Six Seconds, a professor of education, a master teacher and a pioneer in emotional intelligence (EQ) education. Dr. Anabel Jensen has trained over 10,000 educators and professionals worldwide. A two-time Federal Blue Ribbon winner for excellence in education, she was Executive Director of the Nueva School from 1983 to 1997 where she helped develop the Self-Science curriculum featured in Daniel Goleman’s 1995 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence.
Dr. Jensen supervises The Synapse Institute, Six Seconds’ lab school, distilling key pedagogy into programs that are used around the globe. She designs Six Seconds’ programs for education, helping community organizations and schools more effectively support students and families toward an ethical and compassionate future. A gifted curriculum designer, she has written and co-authored numerous training programs including: EQ Trainer Certification, EQ for Families, Six Seconds’ Professional In-service Training for Educators, Developing Human Potential series, The Assessment of School Climate (ASC), plus two psychometric assessments, the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment (SEI) and the Youth Version (SEI-YV)

Dr. Jensen has authored many articles appearing in Priorities Magazine, Catalyst Magazine, the Roeper Review, and on Discovery Channel. Her speaking credits include keynote at national conferences in the US and abroad. Anabel received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. Her major was reading and language acquisition; her minors were psychology and statistics.

Anabel Jensen is an inspiring, caring speaker and teacher who helps people find the best in themselves and each other. She says people pay attention to less than 30% of what you say, but 70% of what you do, so she models the lessons she teaches. Dr. Jensen’s graduate psychology courses at Notre Dame de Namur University are experiential, learner-centered, and emotionally engaging, which led students to name her teacher of the year and to consistently rank hers as one of the top classes in the university.

Dr. Paul D. Houston has established himself as one of the leading spokespersons for American public education through his extensive U.S. and international speaking engagements, published articles and books, and media interviews.

Dr. Houston served as executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) from 1994 to 2008. AASA is the professional organization for more than 13,000 educational leaders in the United States and throughout the world.

Prior to joining AASA, Dr. Houston spent 17 years serving as a superintendent of schools in three uniquely different public education systems: Princeton, N.J.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Riverside, Calif. His K-12 education experience also includes serving as an assistant superintendent in Birmingham, Ala., and as a teacher and building administrator in North Carolina and New Jersey. He has also had the pleasure of serving in an adjunct capacity for the University of North Carolina, Harvard University, Brigham Young University and Princeton University.

Dr. Houston completed his bachelor’s degree at The Ohio State University and received his master’s degree at the University of North Carolina. He received a Certificate of Advanced Study from Harvard University and in 1973 he earned a doctorate of education from Harvard.

In 1991, Dr. Houston was honored by the Council of Great City Schools for his leadership in urban education when he received the Richard R. Green Leadership Award. In 1997, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of education from Duquesne University. The Hope Foundation honored Dr. Houston with the Courageous Leadership Award of 2000. The Horace Mann League presented him with the league’s 2001 Outstanding Educator Award, calling him an articulate spokesperson for strong and effective public education. In 2008, Dr. Houston received the prestigious American Education Award from AASA.

Dr. Houston has published more than 250 articles in professional journals. He co-authored the books The Spiritual Dimension of Leadership: 8 Key Principles to Leading More Effectively (2006), The Board-Savvy Superintendent (2003) and Exploding the Myths (1993). His columns have been collected and published in his books No Challenge Left behind: Transforming American Education through Heart and Soul (2008), Outlook and Perspectives on American Education (2003) and Articles of Faith & Hope for Public Education (1996) His newest book Giving Wings to Children’s Dreams: Making Schools Worthy of Our Children will be published in (2010).

Dr. Houston is co-editor for a series of books on the Soul of Education Leadership with Corwin Press. To date, books in the series include: Data Enhanced Leadership (2010), Building Sustainable Leadership Capacity (2009), Leaders as Communicators and Diplomats (2009) Sustaining Professional Learning Communities (2008), Spirituality in Educational Leadership (2007), Out-of-the-Box Leadership (2007), and Engaging EVERY Learner (2006).

Dr. Paul D. Houston currently serves as executive director emeritus of AASA and president of the Center for Empowered Leadership. He is a consultant, writer and speaker based in Tucson, Ariz. He is committed to advocacy for public education and the children it serves.

Nancy J. Lavelle, Ph.D. is a pre-eminent authority in the area of special education in the United States.

Dr. Lavelle is the Founder, President andCEO of Total Education Solutions, Inc. (TES), a privately held, full-service, multi-state special education company that provides consulting, professional training, compliance, administration, management, and staffing solutions to local education agencies, public, charter and private schools in the United States. Founded in 1997, TES currently provides outsourced special education services to over 5000 eligible children and adults at 300 public, charter and private school sites, representing 70 school districts and county offices of education, and 39 Special Education Local Plan Areas (SELPAs) in California; 26 public school academies representing four Intermediate School Districts and six charter authorizers in Michigan; and 32 community schools representing eight counties and six sponsors in Ohio.

Dr. Lavelle brings to TES over thirty years experience as the President of the nationally recognized, non-profit Institute for the Redesign of Learning, which she also founded. Currently, the Institute offers early intervention, special education, mental health, vocational and job placement services to over 3,000 at-risk children and adults from 30 communities in Southern California.

Dr. Lavelle received her Doctor of Philosophy in Psychological Studies in Education, with a specialization in Special Education, from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a member of the Continuing Education faculty in the Department of Special Education at California State University, Los Angeles. She is the author of “Taking Charge for Educators™” and “Taking Charge: A Life Planning Partnership with At-Risk Youth™” personal responsibility training programs and has conducted over 200 workshops across the United States for parents, educators and other professionals working with at-risk youth. She has served as a Review Panelist for the U.S. Department of Education National Exemplary School Recognition Program; the Council on American Private Education; as well as the Institute for At-Risk Infants, Children, Youth and Their Families; all located in Washington D.C.

Dr. Lavelle has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Private Schools for Exceptional Children, Washington, D.C.; the California Association of Private Special Education Schools, Sacramento, California; Education 1st!, a Los Angeles based entertainment industry group dedicated to improving the quality of education; and the Inside Edge Educational Foundation, Beverly Hills, California. She has also served on the Board of Directors, and is past-President, of the Education Industry Association, based in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Nancy J. Lavelle’s areas of professional expertise include: special education, personal responsibility training, school organization, strategic planning, staff development and training, teacher education, parent training, crisis intervention, self-determination and advocacy.

Jesse Rodriguez is considered by his peers as one of the premier education technologists in the world.

Mr. Rodriguez has had significant management and consulting responsibilities in K – 12 U.S. and international education. In 1988, he was charged with managing all administrative and instructional education information systems as well as planning the eventual decentralization of these systems for the Tucson Unified School District, one the 50 largest school districts in the United States. In 1989, after a successful $400 million bond election, he was given the responsibility of designing and implementing a decentralized information system linking the district’s 134 sites via a high-speed broadband based wide area network.

In 1990, he initiated a program to integrate technology into the curriculum. This project received numerous awards including Business Week Magazine’s Fifth Annual Business Week Award for Instructional Innovation: Schools in the Age of Technology, and showcased on national media and television spots presented by Compaq and Microsoft. Results included the re-engineering of administrative and instructional processes for the district, improved accuracy of student data records, increased Federal and State funding for special programs, improved test scores, attendance and enrollment.

During the 1996-1997 school year, he implemented a district developed distributed client-server based student record management system that linked all of the district schools and administrative offices facilitating the exchange of student records electronically on a real-time basis. In 1998, Mr. Rodriguez started an ERP conversion project to move all financial and human resource information systems to a client-server system using PeopleSoft’s application software. This project became fully operational in mid-1999.

At the end of 1999, he resigned his position with the Tucson Public Schools to work full-time as an educational technology consultant. Major activities include consulting with national educational associations AASA, AESA, ASBO and CoSN and with private sector companies and non-profit organizations Cisco, Compaq, Gates Foundation, HP, ISTE and Microsoft, as well as numerous school districts throughout the country. Internationally, he is involved in a long term project with the Kingdom of Jordan’s Ministry of Education to modernize the country’s educational systems as well as the European Union’s 6th and 7th Framework Programmes.

Jesse Rodriguez has been a keynote speaker on educational technology issues for numerous organizations including AASA, AESA, ASBO, Compaq, HP and Microsoft. In 1992, he received the Carnegie Mellon University and American Management Systems Fifth Award for Achievement in Managing Information Technology.

Dr. Rosemary Burton is one of the leading authorities in early childhood education in the America.

Dr. Rosemary Burton is the Vice President of Education for one of the largest child care companies in the United States. She has over 35 years of experience in the field of Early Childhood Education. She holds degrees in Psychology, Elementary Education, Educational Administration and Supervision and in Early Childhood Education. In addition to developing, overseeing and assessing early childhood curricula, Dr. Burton has direct experience with operating multisite child care programs since the early 1980’s. Before this, she spent time both as the director of child care programs and teacher of kindergarten and first grade classes.

Dr. Burton provides a unique blend of advanced pedagogical theory with real world application. She is the creator of such innovative curricula as Kindergarten Tech, an engineering based program for preschoolers utilizing popular children’s stories in providing children ‘ground floor’ experiential learning in the areas of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

Dr. Burton has also taught college classes in early childhood education and developmental psychology for over fifteen years, providing instruction to teachers already working in child care programs. She has presented at local and regional conferences and is active in the promulgation of regulation and policy at the state level. She has reviewed courses for college credit through the American Council of Education.

Dr. Burton has had articles published in various professional journals and has co-authored a book entitled Social and Emotional Prevention and Intervention Programming for Preschoolers.

Mark Samuel is considered a pre-eminent authority in the area of accountability and has successfully worked with Fortune 100 clients around the world to improve performance execution while achieving sustainable business growth.

Mr. Samuel is the Founder and President of IMPAQ Corporation, the global leader in the movement of personal and organizational accountability. He is the author of “Creating the Accountable Organization” and co-author of “The Power of Personal Accountability.” For the past 25+ years, Mr. Samuel has guided organizations around the globe to higher levels of long-term, sustainable success. He is frequently called upon by companies to address leaders in solving the challenges of culture change, performance improvement, leadership development and effectively managed teamwork.

Mr. Samuel has inspired positive, profitable, sustainable improvement in companies worldwide, including Michelin, Chevron Corporation, American Express, Genentech, Baxter Pharmaceuticals, Nissan, Hewlett-Packard, Universal Studios, Pacific Bell, The Royal Bank of Canada, PDVSA of Venezuela and UC-Berkeley.

Mark Samuel holds a Bachelors Degree in Social Science; a Masters Degree in Management, with a special emphasis in Organizational Development, both from UC Irvine. Additionally, he holds a Masters Degree in Applied Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.

Gary E. Luciani is an expert in private capital financing with an impressive record in raising both senior and subordinated debt and mezzanine and equity securities for leading public, private and non-profit organizations throughout the world.

Mr. Luciani was the Global Head of Mezzanine Capital Markets for UBS, one of the world’s leading financial services firms. During the five plus years that he managed the global mezzanine business, the group raised over $4 billion in capital for the bank’s clients. Prior to this, he was the Head of Mezzanine Finance for Deutsche Bankand its U.S. predecessors, B.T. Alex Brown and Bankers Trust.

A cum laude BSBAgraduate of Bucknell University, Mr. Luciani received an MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School and joined the capital markets group at J.P. Morgan after receiving his degree.

Gary Luciani’s reputation and integrity in his field, as well as unparalleled expertise in private financing, is a welcomed addition to the UNITE Education team.