Vanishing Graduates — Participant Bios

	Bill Blazar is Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Business Development at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Blazar is responsible for the Chamber’s public affairs program and also manages Grow Minnesota!, the Chamber’s business retention and expansion program. He is keenly aware of the workforce challenges facing Minnesota businesses today and in the coming years.
	Kari Davis is Community Impact Manager for the Twin Cities United Way and focuses on the educational disparities goal of children reading at grade level by third grade. Davis’ past professional experiences include Executive Director of Human Resources at Prince of Peace Church in Burnsville, Executive Director of the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota; and Division Director of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship in New York. Davis is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey.
	Tony DelDotto co-founded Vision for Business — a nonprofit organization designed to inspire Twin Cities business and community leaders to collectively invest in and celebrate the academic success of promising inner-city kids. The cornerstone of VFB is a unique college scholarship program that is committed to students when they are in 6th grade. The scholarship, combined with ongoing mentoring, offers kids a huge confidence boost and helps them stay focused on graduating from high school. DelDotto believes that giving kids hope of going to college is an investment in society that reaches far beyond one child’s education.
	Tinbete Ermyas, a senior at Macalester College, hails from Silver Spring, Md. At Macalester, he is concentrating in American Studies, Political Science, and History. His academic and extracurricular interests include political theory, Black/African political thought and practice, popular culture, and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic. He is also very interested in educational issues, particularly dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, educational access, and creating educational opportunities for marginalized communities. He hopes to one day run his own organization that focuses on media production, bo publishing, and creating educational resources for academic institutions.
	Angela Hernandez is a junior majoring in secondary education and Spanish at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. She is the third child out of 10 in her family to go to college; obtaining an education has required much hard work and sacrifice. Hernandez is co-president of the Gustavus Orgullo Latino Association and coordinator of the Amigo after school program for Latino children. She hopes to teach at an immersion school when she graduates.
	Peter Hutchinson joined the Bush Foundation as president in late 2007. He was cofounder of the Public Strategies Group, a St. Paul company that redesigns and transforms governments throughout the world. Hutchinson has also served as the Vice President for External Affairs and Chairman of the Dayton Hudson Foundation, Commissioner of Finance for the State of Minnesota, Superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools and as a Deputy Mayor in Minneapolis. In 2006, he was the Independence Party candidate for Minnesota governor. Hutchinson is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs.
	David B. Laird Jr. is the President of the Minnesota Private College Council, Fund and Research Foundation. Prior to joining the Council in 1988 he was vice president for planning and development and secretary at Carleton College. Laird has spent his career working in higher education, including leadership roles with the Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board. He argues that together, Minnesotans can meet our education challenges and that we must do so to ensure a stable and competitive future.
	Jeffery Olson, Superintendent of Schools, Saint Peter Public Schools
	Renae Oswald-Anderson is Vice President of Community Building at Neighborhood House in St. Paul. She has total operational responsibility for its programs serving multicultural, multilingual community members. She has over 25 years experience in the nonprofit sector at many levels in both the Twin Cities and in greater Minnesota. Oswald-Anderson is passionate about helping all of our youth succeed in school. She believes that the educational disparities are frightening and it is up to the community to find solutions.
	Traci Parmenter is the Chief Operating Officer of Admission Possible, a Twin Cities-based nonprofit that helps low-income high school students prepare for and earn admision to college. Admission Possible serves 1,200 students in 15 metro area high schools, and has helped 98 percent earn admission to college. The goal of the program is to have students' postsecondary outcomes based on their potential, motivation, and effort, rather than their socioeconomic circumstances. Parmenter has worked for more than ten years in the field of education. A former high school teacher, she holds a master's degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and has been with Admission Possible since 2004.
	Kent Pekel is an educator who has worked at the school, district, state, federal and university levels.  He is currently the founding Executive Director of the University of Minnesota’s College Readiness Consortium, a new organization working to provide every Minnesota student with the knowledge, skills and habits for success in higher education and the global economy. Pekel's work is guided by the understanding that individual students and entire school communities can attain high levels of educational performance if they are given a clear and compelling goal to work toward over time and the incentives and supports to achieve it.  He believes that for Minnesota’s students and schools in the 21st century, college readiness can and should be that goal.
	Jim Peterson is President of Gustavus Adolphus College and Chairman of the Board of the Minnesota Private College Council. He began his career as a high school science teacher and later served as a vice president at the Academy of Natural Sciences. From 1984 until assuming the Gustavus presidency in 2003, he was President and CEO of the Science Museum of Minnesota during a period of growth and expansion, including the opening of its current home on the Mississippi River. Peterson has dedicated most of his career to science and education in Minnesota with the conviction our state's future depends on the intellect and ingenuity of its residents.
	Dorothy and Joe Richburg, Keystone Computer Solutions, Inc.
	Howell Shaw is the Director of Marketing and Business Development for Shaw-Lundquist Associates, Inc., the largest Asian-owned general contractor in the nation. He is currently the President of the National Association of Minority Contractors — Upper Midwest Chapter, and is starting up his own MBE-certified green/sustainable construction materials company. As a graduate of Bloomington-Jefferson High School and Stanford University, Howell understands the importance of higher education and training to achieve success in business and community affairs.
	William Tully is the Education and Enrichment Activities Coordinator for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities. He has worked in the area of college access for four years — with BBBS and previously Admission Possible — and is committed to making education accessible and equal for all.
	Mai Lee Vang, Gustavus Adolphus College Junior
	Bao Xiong is a junior at Gustavus Adolphus College, double majoring in International Management and Japanese Studies. She is a Gustavus Collegiate Fellow, President of the Japanese Club, and Assistant to the Director of the Japanese Department. She has ten siblings, enjoys learning about new cultures an networking, and hopes someday to travel the world.