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Richard C. Harwood
| Board of
Directors | Staff | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert J. Kingston | Cindy Page, Director of Finance and Administration | ||
| Gil C.
Thelen | John Creighton, Senior
Fellow | ||
| Jane Prancan | Brad Rourke, Lead Consultant | ||
| Jacqueline W. Harwood | |||
| C. Kent McGuire | |||
| Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez |
Richard C. Harwood
Harwood, who has been called "one of the great thinkers in American public life," has dedicated his life to finishing that work. Over the past 15 years, he has become a leading national authority on improving America's communities, raising standards of political conduct, and re-engaging citizens on today's most complex and controversial public issues.
Harwood seeks to uncover answers to some of the most pressing questions of our time. He has worked with thousands of people in dozens of U.S. cities, spreading a vision for what American society should be and putting innovative practices to use on the ground to turn that vision into reality. Every day, Harwood is leading the charge to redeem hope in our politics and public life.
A dynamic and inspirational public speaker, Harwood has been featured at hundreds of events and is a frequent keynote speaker for foundations and national organizations. He is a commentator and contributor on national and syndicated television, newspapers, radio and web sites, including MSNBC, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN's Inside Politics, The Jim Bohannon Show, Special Report with Brit Hume, and C-SPAN, as well as on Dallas, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, and National Public Radio, where he has been the featured guest on Talk of the Nation.
Recently, Harwood hosted a highly successful public TV and radio program in Cleveland, Ohio called How Far Will You Go? This 90-minute broadcast challenged citizens and community leaders to step forward to re-engage in Cleveland's public life. He also is a regular panelist on the annual public television broadcast A Public Voice, hosted by former CNN news anchor Frank Sesno.
In October of 1999, Harwood was a featured speaker along with Colin Powell and Doris Kearns Goodwin at the White House Fellows 35th Anniversary Program. He is a faculty member of the Public Affairs Institute and also has lectured at the prestigious Poynter Institute, a national school of journalism.
Harwood founded The Harwood Institute in 1998, following 10 years of success as president of the for-profit Harwood Group. His past experience includes service on the policy staffs of U.S. presidential and congressional election campaigns and as director of issues research for Public Agenda. Harwood has also traveled in the former Soviet Union to consult with mayors and non-governmental organizations on more effective governance.
In 1982, Harwood received his B.A. in Political Economy from Skidmore College. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a Harry S. Truman Scholar. He received his M.A. in Public Affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Robert J. Kingston
Robert Kingston is a Senior Associate of the Kettering Foundation. He grew up in England, was educated at Oxford, and first came to this country (of which he is now a citizen) as a professor of Shakespeare at the University of Michigan.
A former president of The College Board, Kingston served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations, and was executive director of Public Agenda in its formative years.
At Kettering, Kingston is editor of the Kettering Review; executive producer of the annual television program, A Public Voice; assists in the developing of collaborative projects with other organizations — like the international “Deliberative Democracy Workshops” and the “National Issues Convention” (with McNeil/Lehrer Productions and the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford); and he has contributed in the planning of virtually all of the foundation’s operating programs.
Gil C. Thelen
Gil Thelen is Publisher and President of The Tampa Tribune, a 240,000 circulation daily paper in Tampa, Florida. Thelen was a consultant to KnightRidder on newsroom development prior to joining the Tribune in May, 1998.
He was executive editor and vice president of The State newspaper, Columbia, S.C., from 1990 to 1997. The Society of Newspaper Design in 1996 named The State one of the three best, American, midsize papers on content and presentation.
From 1987 to 1990, Thelen was editor and executive vice president of The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. The American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1990 named The Sun News as one of 10 examples of excellence among small newspapers.
Thelen served in a number of assistant editor positions at The Charlotte Observer from 1978 to 1987, the last as assistant managing editor for news. He was also a Washington correspondent from 1966 to 1978, first for the Associated Press, then Consumer Reports magazine and finally the Chicago Daily News.
He is a graduate of Duke University and did postgraduate work at Cornell University. He teaches often at colleges and universities, is an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and has been a Pulitzer Prize juror. He is chairman of ASNE's education committee, was chairman of the ASNE Change Committee in 1995-96, served on the Journalism Values Institute and is a member of the ASNE Credibility Project.
Thelen, 67, is married to Cynthia Struby, and they have four children.
Jane Prancan
Jane Prancan currently serves as the Senior Director for Resource Development and Public Education for the American Indian College Fund, a national organization providing support for the nation’s 32 tribal colleges/universities and their students. She also is a principal in the consulting firm, Community Ventures Plus, which provides services to corporations, foundations and nonprofit organizations. She retired as the president of the Qwest Foundation in 2000. She was the founding executive director of its predecessor, the U S WEST Foundation, and headed that organization for 18 years. Prior to her work at U S WEST, she was a program officer with the Piton Foundation.
Jane has a Master’s degree from the University of Colorado and a B.A. from the University of Denver.
Jane serves on a number of community and business boards, including, vice chairman of Bellco Credit Union, treasurer of the Harwood Institute, and chairman of the Denver Community Corrections board. She also serves as a board member of the Jack and Marilyn MacAllister Foundation, Osage Initiatives, and PHAMAL (Physically Handicapped Amateur Musicians and Actors League) and is an emeritus board member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.
Jacqueline Harwood
Jacqueline W. Harwood has served on The Harwood Institute Board since 2000. She currently works in the Office of Planning, Analysis, and Accountability at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she works in the areas of strategic planning and performance assessment. She also worked in the agency’s Offices of Pesticide Programs and Ground-Water Protection, conducting analyses on EPA efforts to protect water from agricultural contamination. In her each of her roles, she was the recipient of the EPA bronze medal for her work.
Jacqueline began her career working as an issues aide on the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Frank R. Lautenberg. She then served as Sen. Lautenberg’s Legislative Correspondent for Environmental and Natural Resources Issues before becoming a presidential Management Intern in both the EPA and the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget.
Jacqueline has also served on the boards of other local agencies and nonprofits. She was on the Executive Board of the Wood Acres Elementary School Parent-Teacher Association, as well as the Board of Directors of the Westmoreland Children’s Center.
Jacqueline graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Government, and then received her M.A. in Political Science from the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Jackie is married to Harwood Institute president and founder Rich Harwood and has two children.
C. Kent McGuire
C. Kent McGuire is the Dean of the College of Education at Temple University. He also serves as Director of the Center for Research in Human Development and Education, a university-based research organization focused on the study and demonstration of effective strategies for educating poor and minority youngsters. Dr. McGuire is a tenured Professor in the Educational Administration Program, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Temple University.
Prior to joining Temple University Dr. McGuire was senior vice president at the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, where his responsibilities included leadership of the education, children and youth division. In 1998 through 2001, Dr. McGuire served in the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he was the senior officer for the department's research and development agency. As the education program officer for the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts from 1995 to 1998, he managed Pew's K-12 grants portfolio. From 1991 to 1995, Dr. McGuire served as Education Program Director for the Eli Lilly Endowment.
Earlier in Dr. McGuire’s career he was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in their School of Education. Prior to this, Dr. McGuire worked for the Education Commission of the States, where he rose from policy analyst to senior policy analyst and director of the School Finance Collaborative.
Dr. McGuire is active in a variety of professional and civic associations. He currently serves on the following boards: Moorestown Public School; Institute for Education Leadership; Jobs for America’s Future; The New Teacher Project; Parents for Public Schools; Wachovia Regional Foundation; and Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation.
Dr. McGuire received his Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1991, his M.A. in education administration and policy from Columbia University Teacher's College in 1979, and his B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1977.
Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez
Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez joined Goodwill Industries as President and CEO in March 2004. Known for her dynamic leadership style, and with 15 years of executive management experience spanning the non-profit, philanthropic, public and private sectors, Ms. Alvarez-Rodriguez has a track record of catalyzing change within organizations and leading them toward greater innovation, accountability and responsiveness.
Throughout her career Ms. Alvarez-Rodriguez has consistently aimed to advance disadvantaged individuals and communities by promoting and implementing new policies, services, and business opportunities based on cross-sector collaboration.
Prior to joining Goodwill, Ms. Alvarez-Rodriguez was Vice President of Silicon Valley's Omidyar Foundation, the family foundation created by the founder of E-Bay, where she developed community building, human services and grant making strategies. Previously, as the Director of San Francisco's Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF), she helped build one of the most comprehensive early childhood education and care systems in the nation and launched one of California's most comprehensive working wage and workforce development initiatives for childcare workers.
Before joining DCYF, Ms. Alvarez-Rodriguez specialized in evaluation, strategic planning and health system redesign at the Lewin Group, an internationally recognized health care consulting firm. Previous to that position, she was Founder and CEO of San Francisco's Every Child Can Learn Foundation, Executive Director of Intergovernmental and School-linked Services at the San Francisco Unified School District, and Assistant Director for Budget and Planning for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Ms. Alvarez-Rodriguez is a graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College.
Cindy Page
Cindy Page serves as director of finance and administration for The Harwood Institute. In this role, she oversees the Institute's budget and accounting, manages employee records and policies, and advises the President on matters of business administration.
Prior to joining the Harwood Institute, Page was Controller of RIVA Market Research where she served on the corporate Senior Executive Committee formulating five and ten-year business plans and was responsible for general accounting, human resources, and network systems administration.
Page holds a BS in business administration from the University of South Carolina, and is a certified public accountant. She lives in Germantown, Maryland with her husband Rick and their children, Scott, and Melanie.
Eric
Rigaud
Eric
Rigaud is an award-winning new media producer
and is currently the Director
of Technology & Social Networks at the
Harwood Institute for Public
Innovation, a non-profit, catalytic
organization based in Bethesda, MD.
Eric
is formerly Director of TouchDC, the nation's
first, regionally-focused, online
giving initiative. TouchDC provides
online tools and resources that facilitate
donating or volunteering to any of the Greater
DC region's 23,000+ charities.
Under Eric's leadership, TouchDC raised
over $8 million online for local
charities. Prior to TouchDC, Eric was
Marketing Director of YouthNOISE, Save
the Children's award-winning, youth e-civic
engagement initiative. In this
capacity, he developed and executed all
strategic marketing and communications
plans, media campaigns, and signature
philanthropic programs, garnering over
100,000 members, a.k.a. NOISEmakers, in over
180 countries worldwide. Prior to
Save the Children, Eric was President of
Rigaud Consult, Inc., a cause marketing
consulting firm that provided strategic
counsel to various media and nonprofit
organizations. During his tenure, Eric
created Rap-It-Up, Black Entertainment
Television's award-winning, national HIV/AIDS
awareness campaign focused on the
African-American community. Eric also
has several years experience in brand
management at The Procter & Gamble
Company. Eric has a sincere passion for
developing innovative uses of technology to
connect communities, accelerate
change, and promote global social
justice.
Aaron
Leavy
Aaron Leavy serves
as Communications Manager for The Harwood
Institute. He
oversees Institute communications, as well
as helping to design and implement outreach
strategies.
John Creighton
John Creighton joined The Harwood Institute in 2004 as a Senior Fellow. Creighton will play an integral role in several of the Institute's on-the-ground initiatives. His focus areas will include News Media and Society as well as Civic Engagement and Public Agencies.
Creighton is the founder of Conocer, a Colorado-based company dedicated to helping public leaders make informed decisions. He previously served as Director of The Harwood Institute, and as Vice President of The Harwood Group.
Creighton is a graduate of the University of Kansas and holds a Master's of Public Policy degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Brad Rourke
Brad Rourke is a writer, consultant and essayist on public life. Rourke was senior project manager and then director, external initiatives at The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation and vice president for public policy at the Institute for Global Ethics. He has been active in public affairs at all levels, having served on the staffs of then-Controller of California Gray Davis and Congresswoman Jane Harman, and also served as deputy California campaign manager for the National Health Care Campaign and as state government relations representative for Northrop Grumman Corporation. Rourke has also been an advocate for alternative transportation, lobbying successfully to change the state vehicle codes in all of the Pacific states.
Brad is founding editor of the Rockville Central community blog, one of the few community-generated information sources in the third-largest city in Maryland. He is also singer and guitarist for The West End.
