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Linda Chaput has more than 20 years of experience at top
executive levels in development and dissemination of educational
products and materials. She is Founder and Chief Executive Officer
of Agile Mind, Inc. Before founding Agile Mind, she was President
of Scientific American's education, general, professional and reference
publishing, and founder and CEO of Cogito Learning Media, Inc. For
12 years at Scientific American, Linda was the President and Editorial
Director of W.H. Freeman and Company (a wholly owned subsidiary
of SA) and later also the President of Scientific American Medicine.
During her tenure, Linda created an acquisitions and development
group whose success rate for developing and publishing textbooks
and reference books ranked among the highest in the industry. She
oversaw the publication of books in biology, psychology, chemistry,
astronomy, mathematics and statistics characterized by innovation,
rigor, and commercial success. Linda also directed the development
and launch of the Scientific American Library, a landmark deluxe
trade continuity series of illustrated books written by leading
scientists for interested lay readers. As President of Scientific
American Medicine, she oversaw the launch of its multimedia and
online professional services, now a part of WebMD.
In 1995 Linda founded Cogito, a pioneering provider of top-quality multimedia and Internet-ready learning tools authored by authorities who were leaders in their fields. The audience was students in higher education, adults, and participants in high school gifted-and-talented programs. The company created, with authors and leading instructional designers and animators, authoritative content in science, mathematics, business, economics, and other critical competency, large-market subjects deliverable on a variety of platforms, including the Internet, CD-ROM, video, and print. Cogito became the value leader in a market previously dominated by free textbook supplements.
Nicholas Smith, Chief Operating Officer of Agile Mind, has been helping teachers and students, and leveraging technology to do so, for the past 25 years. He spent nine years at Aplia, a leading online homework solutions provider in higher education—-for the last five years as Aplia's president and before that as a builder and leader of key teams including content development, customer support, and sales. Through his leadership the company grew to profitability, increased its workforce from 15 to over 150 employees, and expanded its solutions from one subject—economics, in which Aplia now has a 35 percent market share—to 15 different subjects. Nicholas managed the company through a successful acquisition in 2007 by Cengage Learning, where Aplia products and technologies are is now at the core of the company's's digital solutions strategy. Before joining Aplia, Nicholas developed and produced online courses for Pensare, Inc., a web-based professional training and development company. There, he worked with Duke University's Fuqua School of Business to develop online courses for the university's eMBA program. Prior experiences includes work at SRI Consulting, establishing and managing internal computer training programs throughout Europe and the United States.
Nicholas also spent 11 years as an educator at Keys School, a private K-8 school in the San Francisco Bay Area. During his tenure there, he taught full time, helped found the middle school program, and designed and built the computer lab and computer curriculum. Nicholas holds a master's degree from Brandeis University in Boston, MA and an undergraduate degree from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR.
Clarence (Andy) Felong brings more than 25 years experience
in software development, IT, quality assurance, operations and management
to his role as Vice President of Engineering. Before joining Agile
Mind, he was CTO and Vice President of Advanced Technology at Walmart.com
where he and his team were responsible for the end-to-end eCommerce
platform architecture and particularly for ensuring that it was
scalable, available and secure. Andy was CTO and Vice President
of Engineering at internet start-up more.com, where he was responsible
for integrating business systems, including supply chain management,
customer relationship management, and data warehouses with more.com's
web portal. At Oracle Corporation, Andy was Vice President of the
Internet Applications Division, with responsibility for technology
management of eCommerce, Collaboration, Web Portals and Document
Management. He also spent eight years at Apple Computer in a variety
of capacities ranging from managing software development for the
original PowerBooks to being Senior Director of Communications and
Collaboration Technologies, which included responsibility for Apple's
collaborative learning products. Andy began his career writing real-time
imaging software for Voyager Spacecraft at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
He is an active contributor to the Open Source community and maintains
an online resource of wearable computer technologies.
Toby Levenson, Senior Director of Program Development, is
responsible for the development, maintenance, and continuous improvement
of all Agile Mind online services. She has over 15 years experience
working as an educational designer, curriculum developer, and researcher.
Prior to joining Agile Mind, Toby was Senior Research Associate
for WestEd, where for five years she conducted scientific research
studies on the effectiveness of mathematics and reading instructional
technology materials; studied technology education curricula as
it pertained to technology standards; and researched and provided
recommendations to the Title I office of the US Department of Education
for better supporting states' department of education in implementing
NCLB. Before that, as Project Manager for WestEd's online efforts,
she designed and developed two online professional development portals,
one for online California School Leadership Academy courses for
administrators and education leaders and the other providing educational
technology resources for the western Regional Technology Education
Center (RTEC).
Before WestEd, Toby was the Manager of the Educational Design group
at The Learning Company. She is also the co-author of Bringing Technology
Education into K-8 Classrooms (2005), published by NSTA, Corwin
Press, and ITEA. She holds a MEd in interactive technology in education
from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
David Savage brings to his role as Vice President and National Director of Professional Services at Agile Mind over 20 years of varied experience in K-12 education. Most recently, he was of Director of Professional Services for Teachscape, where he led the team responsible for the recruitment, training, support, and supervision of the company's consultants and developed and coordinated face-to-face and online professional learning programs for consultants and service personnel. Prior to Teachscape, Mr. Savage worked for five years for Edison Schools, first as Deputy Director of the Curriculum Division, and then as Senior Vice President where he developed the framework and protocol for supporting, monitoring, and evaluating program implementation and student achievement in a national network of 91 schools in 23 states. Mr. Savage began his career as a teacher for seven years, and then served as an assistant principal, a program coordinator, a director of curriculum and instruction, and a principal of a start-up school. Mr. Savage received his undergraduate degree from Valparaiso University and his Masters from the Johns Hopkins University, where he also taught courses in special education and pedagogy in its graduate program.
Deborah Zimmerman has more than 15 years of experience producing
educational technology. As Agile Mind's Executive Producer, she
directs the design and production of our online content. Debbie
began her career at Stanford University, as part of a pioneering
group working on early multimedia educational technologies in collaboration
with Apple Computer, IBM and NeXT. She worked with Stanford educators
to produce and deliver innovative uses of these technologies into
high school and university classrooms. She moved from there to work
at Silicon Valley companies Pensare, Inc. and Aplia, Inc. where
she built and directed production teams to create web-based educational
services used at hundreds of colleges and universities across the
US. In these efforts, Debbie and her colleagues collaborated with
educators at Harvard University, Duke University, the Wharton School
of Business and the Annenberg Foundation at USC. Before joining
Agile Mind, Debbie worked as an independent consultant, providing
strategic advice, user-interface design, proposal writing, and her
favorite work--design of online learning interactions--for a variety
of clients. Debbie holds an Master of Science degree in Computer
Science from Stanford University.
Gregg McFarland, President of Agile Initiatives, has more than 20 years of experience in private sector education technology. A CPA, Gregg began his career in the in the audit and consulting practice of KPMG and was a founding executive of Jostens Learning, an educational software publisher and services provider for pre-K to adult learners. During his tenure at Jostens, he held a number of executive positions including Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, Vice President and General Manager of Package Software, and Senior Vice President responsible for national sales, marketing, government relations, and customer service. In 1997, Gregg founded Whole Village Technology, a pioneer Educational Application Service Provider. In partnership with the state of Florida, Whole Village created ActionProfiler, a tool for enhancing parental involvement in student learning. After completing a merger of Whole Village, Gregg joined the Agile Mind founding team.
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