Colin manages two workforce demonstration programs: Connecting People to Jobs and the Latino Pathways Initiative. His work focuses on integrative approaches to systems change and training immigrant workers.

Colin has spent the past 15 years working with Latino immigrant communities in North Carolina. During this time, he acted as legal counsel on immigration and employment matters, was an outreach worker for farmworker labor camps and a research coordinator for an environmental health project. As a board member of El Pueblo, Inc. and Student Action with Farmworkers, Colin worked on advocacy and cultural transition issues. He currently serves on the advisory board of the North Carolina Community College System's Latino Initiative and is participating in the national Sector Skills Academy as a Marano Fellow. As part of his work at MDC, Colin continues to conduct research and policy work on economic and social change in the South. Educational background: Spanish, law, city and regional planning (Brigham Young University, Duke University School of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Mark manages MDC's day to day operations, including its financial, human resources, and IT functions, and is responsible for promoting an effective organizational culture.  He has a key role in developing and implementing short and long-range strategic planning, and takes a keen interest in issues of strategic philanthropy across all MDC's programs.  Before coming to MDC, Mark was executive director of the Lucy Daniels Foundation, a Raleigh-based private foundation.  He has leadership experience in corporate, nonprofit, and academic settings, and has served as a director or trustee for many charitable organizations.  At UNC-Chapel Hill, he was director of the Global Education Initiative for the School of Education.  At NC State University, he was associate director of the William R. Kenan, Jr., Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science and was founding director of the Park Scholarships.  He also served as an executive-in-residence for NCSU's HiTECH program, where he led teams of entrepreneurs in technology commercialization activities.  Educational background: psychology (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

The 2004-2005 Autry Fellow, LeElaine works with the Latino Pathways project and the Program for the Rural Carolinas. During her fellowship, she worked on Rural Leadership for Community Change.  As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, she was awarded the Pearl L. Calvin Scholarship and Neal Johnson Scholarship. She spent five months in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua studying social change and sustainable economic development. She also served as an Americorps volunteer in San Jose, California, working on efforts to educate local youth on issues surrounding migrant farm workers.

Her volunteer and public service experiences include work with local female immigrants through Mujeres Aprendiendo Nuevas Oportunidades; serving as an inclusion companion with autistic children; interning as a volunteer coordinator with Orphanage Outreach in the Dominican Republic; co-chairing Advocates for the Empowerment of Women of All Color, a group committed to women's rights domestically and internationally; and spending time on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Heart Butte, Montana, focusing on community revitalization efforts. Since joining MDC, she has worked primarily on the Latino Pathways project. Educational background: sociology and social and economic justice (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

John focuses on community development, environmental justice, dispute resolution, public policy research, emergency management, and land use planning. Currently he assists the Program for the Rural Carolinas and directs the FEMA Emergency Preparedness Demonstration Program.

He has served as project development coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and consulted with community development groups on issues of strategic planning and civic engagement. He is a board member of the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance and the Z. Smith Reynolds Advisory Panel. Educational background: economics, urban planning, city and regional planning (Texas A & M University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Since joining MDC in 1987, David has directed major projects to strengthen public schools and community colleges, address rural economic decline, create new philanthropic structures, and build multiracial leadership for civic change in the Carolinas, the Deep South, and Appalachia. He helped The Duke Endowment design its $10 million Program for the Rural Carolinas, for which MDC serves as managing partner. David is coauthor of several MDC publications including Building Community by Design, Creating Economic Opportunities for Every Young Person (2000), and Building Communities of Conscience and Conviction: Lessons from MDC's Recent Experience (1998). He is a member of the boards of The Hitachi Foundation, Center for Law and Social Policy, Corporation for Enterprise Development, and Dwight Hall at Yale-the university center for community service and social justice.

He has been a visiting lecturer in the Hart Leadership Program, Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy at Duke University. Prior to joining MDC he served as executive director of the Cummins Engine Foundation and director of corporate responsibility for Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, Indiana. Educational background: architecture and planning, ethics and theology, public and private management (Yale College; Yale Divinity School; Yale School of Organization and Management).

Kate joined MDC in March 2006 and works on the Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count initiative focusing on institutional change. In addition to other responsibilities, Kate guides agenda planning for the annual Strategy Institute, a gathering of representatives from all Achieving the Dream institutions and national partners, which in February 2008 had 900 participants. Kate also oversees the annual review of demonstration college and university progress reports.

Kate graduated with honors from Guilford College, where she focused on international studies and political science. Her interests include economic development strategies and implementation for the least developed nations of the world as well as leadership roles, tools, and tactics to bring about social change. Educational background: political science, international studies (Guilford College in Greensboro, NC).

Susan's work focuses on Achieving the Dream, especially the community engagement aspects of the initiative. Before joining the MDC staff, she worked for twenty-five years as a self-employed facilitator, organizational consultant, and educator in the nonprofit and public sectors. Her engagements have included: facilitating collaborations between public and non-profit organizations, designing and facilitating strategic and program planning for large and small systems, designing and facilitating experiential education workshops on a variety of topics including change, interpersonal communication, and experiential education, and designing and facilitating community development processes.

Susan began her career as a carpenter and co-founder of Space Builders, Inc., an employee-owned and democratically managed design and construction firm, where she served as principal group facilitator and general manager for thirteen years. She served many years on the boards of the Center for Community Self-Help, the Self-Help Credit Union Community Independent School, and the Satir Institute of the Southeast. Educational background: psychology, adult education and organizational development (University of Rochester, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Bonnie leads MDC's policy and communications work on the Achieving the Dream initiative. She was previously the College Prep program officer at the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, New England's largest education philanthropy. In her work at Nellie Mae, she designed a new multi-year grant program for college-school partnerships to improve academic achievement for underserved students and helped lead the development of the College Ready New England P-16 Alliance, a regional policy and program collaboration in support of college access and success for underserved students. She also negotiated and directed the Foundation's funding partnership with Lumina Foundation for Education to bring three Connecticut community colleges into Achieving the Dream. She is a 20-year veteran of higher education administration, having served in a number of positions at Ithaca College, including vice president for college relations and resource development.

Bonnie has extensive experience with state and national education associations, including the National Council of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the American Council on Education (ACE). She has served as a member of the ACE Commission on Adult Learning and Education Credentials, the board of visitors of Air University (United States Air Force), and as a program evaluator for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.  In addition, she has served on the national Pathways to College Network Executive Committee, the Massachusetts Think College Early Committee, and the Massachusetts State GEAR UP Advisory Committee. She has provided independent consulting services to both corporate and non-profit clients for policy analysis and program support in education, management, human resources, marketing, public relations and fundraising. She is currently a member of the board of directors of Fenway High School in Boston, MA. Educational background: speech communication and education (Ithaca College, Harvard University).

Lucy directs the EITC Carolinas initiative and focuses on the economics of work and poverty and low-income housing. Her previous positions have included senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS) at UNC-Chapel Hill, staff member for the Joint Economic Committee and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations and Human Resources of the U.S. Congress, and consultant to the North Carolina Governor's Rural Prosperity Task Force and the Office of Economic Development at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

She serves as board chair of the Center for Economic Justice in Austin, Texas, and is a steering committee member of the National Community Tax Coalition. Educational background: urban and regional planning; human biology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University).

Her previous experience includes drafting and design with IBM and serving as secretary to the president of clinical trials of Quintiles Inc. Educational background: business administration and mechanical drawing (Durham Technical Community College).

In addition to serving as senior fellow at MDC, Ferrel directs the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a lecturer at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He is a coauthor of the State of the South series and The Carolinas Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow.

He was formerly southern correspondent, government affairs editor, Washington correspondent, editorial page editor, and columnist at The News and Observer in Raleigh, NC. He also has written for The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, America, The New Republic, and a variety of Southern magazines, journals, and newspapers. He is a contributor to books on public policy, tobacco in transition, and the politics of race. Educational background: journalism (Loyola University of New Orleans; Columbia University).

Richard works with all of MDC's projects to connect their insights and solutions with the media, policymakers and the community at large. He oversees MDC's Web sites, helps prepare presentation materials, and assists in writing and editing the State of the South report and other research papers.

He's a native of New Orleans and a graduate of Columbia University, where he earned a degree in urban studies and was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator. Since then, he has been a reporter, editor and columnist for newspapers across the South for more than 25 years. Beginning at his hometown newspaper, The Times-Picayune, covering the city's historic preservation movement, he continued to focus on planning and environmental concerns in reporting, editing and management positions at The Boston Globe, The Capital Reporter in Jackson, Miss., The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., The Miami Herald, The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., and The Chapel Hill News. His work at those papers won prizes for investigative reporting, design, and coverage of urban growth issues. He also was a correspondent in the Madrid, Spain, bureau of United Press International and, most recently, was editor of the Independent Weekly, which covers politics, social issues and the arts in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region of North Carolina. In his five years there, Richard twice won N.C. Press Association awards for editorial writing, and the newspaper won 49 state, regional and national awards. He lives in Durham, N.C., with his wife, Sally Hicks, and their two children.

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Leslie Howell
Accounting Manager
lhowell@mdcinc.org

Leslie manages MDC's accounting operations, including payroll, record keeping, benefits, and management of contracts.

Leslie has been an accounting manager in both corporate and nonprofit environments. She served as a Financial Specialist on special assignments for Robert Half International, a leading finance and accounting service provider worldwide, most recently working as an accounting manager in the biotechnology and hospitality industries.

She earned a BBA degree, with a concentration in accounting, from Georgia Southern University and hails from Savannah, Ga., where she and her husband went to the same high school at the same time ? but did not know each other. Their blended family of six has lived in Raleigh since 1994. Her favorite pastimes are reading with her daughter and writing, and she has two unfinished manuscripts she hopes to finish one day. 

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Mary Lee
Communications Associate
mlee@mdcinc.org

Mary works directly with all MDC teams and executive staff, assisting with communications project and presentation development. Mary is also responsible for MDC's Web site management and is MDC's senior liaison with the organization's external communications technology consultants. Mary provides staff training and technical assistance in various software products and on-site IT support. Mary has recently joined the Achieving the Dream Web Group to help ensure that Achieving the Dream information and material appear on the MDC Web site and are routinely updated. Mary's previous experience includes management and accounting for a local graphic design firm and a local production company. Mary is currently enrolled in a Webmaster Certification program at North Carolina State University.

Carol has more than 35 years' experience working on issues of educational access, workforce development, and rural community development. She currently directs Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a national multi-year initiative which seeks to increase the success of community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color.

From 1994 through 2003 she directed the Rural Community College Initiative's (RCCI) national demonstration program to increase educational access and economic opportunity in distressed rural communities. From 1998-2004, she co-led MDC's international work in Namibia and South Africa where lessons from RCCI were used to help four-year institutions become catalysts for development in impoverished rural regions. She coauthored Let's Do It our Way: Working Together for Educational Excellence and America's Shame, America's Hope: Twelve Million Youth at Risk, which led to a national PBS television project to raise public awareness of the large numbers of youth leaving school unprepared for postsecondary education or careers. Previous experience includes the New York State Manpower Resources Commission and New York State Manpower Planning Council and later the National Commission for Employment Policy. Educational background: mathematics and sociology (State University of New York at Albany).

Joan focuses on philanthropy and education and is an advisor to foundations and nonprofits on school improvement and youth development. Formerly, she served as program director for elementary and secondary education at Lilly Endowment from 1986 to 1995, where she specialized in youth development research and middle-school reform initiatives. Prior to that, she established and directed the Center for Early Adolescence at UNC-Chapel Hill, was a faculty member of the Bush Institute for Child and Family Policy, and was a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health.

Previously, she was a program associate at the Learning Institute of North Carolina, a member of the College Board's Commission on Precollegiate Guidance and Counseling, a research associate at the National Institute of Education, a member of the governing board of the Annenberg Rural Challenge, a founding director of the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute (NCCAI), and a founding member of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform. Joan currently serves on the boards of the Hershey Trust Company, the Milton Hershey School, NCCAI, the Executive Service Corps of the Greater Triangle, and DonorsChoose NC. She began her career as a secondary school English teacher. Educational background: English and education (Wellesley College, University of Connecticut, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Her previous experience includes serving as the administrative secretary for West Durham Baptist Church and Day Care Center and as unit administrative assistant at Duke University Medical Center. Educational background: business administration (North Carolina Central University).

Janell is a member of the ATD team. She comes to us as a recent graduate of East Carolina University. Her educational background includes a BA in psychology with a minor in child development and family relations. She most recently worked for Southlight, Pathways, an outpatient substance abuse treatment facility located in Raleigh, NC. Janell's interests include promoting change and reform in the public healthcare and education sector.

Noah is the 2006-2007 Autry Fellow. A native of Marshall, North Carolina, Noah is a 2006 graduate of Duke University, majoring in history. Since 2002, he has worked with Student Action for Farmworkers (SAF) in a variety of support roles. In summer 2005, he was part of the Into the Field Internship and Leadership Development Program and worked with SAF building links between farmworkers and faith-based communities and supporting the efforts of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the Farmworker Advocacy Network. During that time, he also completed a documentary project detailing folklife traditions of farmworkers from Pachuca, Mexico, and received a $2,500 grant to study the impact of globalization on farmworkers and immigration.

Noah also has volunteered as a tutor for primary school ESL students and worked in Madison County conducting a survey of farms and helping farmers market their produce. In the summer of 2004, he attended a six-week history program at Oxford University in England.

Christina assists both the FEMA Emergency Preparedness Demonstration Program and the Program for the Rural Carolinas. Her interests include economic and community development in the rural South, poverty reduction, public policy, program evaluation, and classism.

Her prior experience includes serving as a consultant to nonprofit human service organizations in North Carolina, project management to implement research-based services under a joint federal and state grant, and community building and grants management at United Way of Greater Greensboro. Educational background: social work (New York University), management and community practice social work (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

Sam focuses on workforce development and public policy, including directing statewide policy studies of workforce and economic development systems and providing technical assistance and coaching to communities engaged in the Program for the Rural Carolinas. He has expertise in state and community college workforce development systems, project direction, program and policy research, curriculum development, training and technical assistance to public and private agencies, and small group training and facilitation in motivation and program management.

He is the author of MDC evaluation, training, and capacity-building documents including Senior Effectiveness Training; MDC's Performance Analysis Process; and Learning and Teaching: How to Get Started on Building State and Regional Peer/Peer TA Systems. His experience before joining MDC includes the United States Air Force; private industry management; rural workforce programming in the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere, and as a Ford Foundation/Department of Labor Manpower Assistance Project Fellow. Educational background: mathematics (United States Armed Forces Institute; East Central College).

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Terri Smith
Chief Financial Officer
tsmith@mdcinc.org

Terri directs the overall financial function of the organization, establishing and implementing effective controls, practices and standards in finance and human resources. She is a key member of senior management working to ensure the financial integrity of the organization across all grants, projects, and activities. She provides strategic counsel on matters of fiscal agency and responsibility, and on operational feasibility of new work and mission related opportunities.

For nearly 22 years, Terri worked at Nortel Networks, starting as a senior financial analyst in the sales and customer service organizations and later becoming Assistant to the Controller and Manager of General Accounting Services. Before leaving Nortel in 2003 to work for a nonprofit, she became Senior Manager of Finance for Carrier Networks Manufacturing Operations, responsible for financial management of a $206 million cost center, and later Senior Manager of Vendor Relations-North America Training and Documentation Services, responsible for leading the consolidation of more than 60 training programs into a few, core organizations.

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from Elon University, and did graduate work in accounting at Georgia State University. Terri lives in Cary with her husband, 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter.

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Tiki Windley
Program Manager
twindley@mdcinc.org

Tiki works as a program manager for MDC's EITC Carolinas. While still a college student, Tiki served as an administrator at River City Community Development Corporation and quickly realized her calling in the nonprofit world. She subsequently moved to Greensboro, NC, to work as operations manager for Gate City Community Development Corporation and then returned to her family home in Belhaven, NC, where she was a program manager for Community Developers of Beaufort-Hyde. In that position, she taught financial literacy at the local high school and provided free tax preparation for families in need.  Educational background: business administration with a minor in economics and finance (Elizabeth City State University).