Ms. Aring serves as Senior Analyst and Team Leader for the Workforce and Economic Development Initiative at the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). There she is focusing on innovative, private sector-led approaches to job creation and related governance issues. She also serves as senior technical consultant to GWIT. Previously, she worked at EDC in Boston, where she directed the Center for Workforce Development, raising over $9 million and growing a full-time staff from 1 to 14. At EDC, she led the technical team in writing a successful proposal for the USAID GWIT project. She has worked in over 28 countries on every continent; identifying best practice in private sector led workforce development systems. Her study, “Compass to Workforce Development” is used by world development organizations for training purposes, and has become part of the baseline for USAID’s approach to workforce development around the world. This, and other experiences, led her to recognize the importance of growing stakeholder involvement, trust, and relationships as part of technical assistance work.

With USAID and Asian Development Bank support, she led a number of public forums for leaders in countries in Latin America, Africa, the U.S., India, and Central Asia. These forums have allowed participants to discover where their underlying mental models hinder or enhance their effectiveness as leaders of their country’s institutions. She recently directed a project funded by the Asian Development Bank to grow skills and entrepreneurs in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. In the US she served as an Advisor to the Education Commission of the States and to various other organizations. In partnership with six states, in 1998 Ms. Aring published a $3.2 million dollar breakthrough research project, analyzing how people learn at work outside training events in high performing work organizations, including Motorola, Boeing, Ford, and small and mid-sized firms.

Ms. Aring is a graduate of Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, where she received a Master’s in Public Administration in 1989. She is also a Magna cum Laude graduate of Brooklyn College, with two undergraduate degrees. Aring is listed in Who’s Who of Women for the New Millennium and in the 2003 edition of Who’s Who of American Women. She speaks five languages: Russian, German, French, Spanish and English.

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Sally Everett, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

Sally Everett, Principal in Charge, at Booz Allen Hamilton is responsible for oversight of the firm's role in the USAID GWIT contract. She is currently working on economic impact of HIV/AIDS, trade/customs and economic indicators in Egypt, and regional infrastructure strategic planning in the Balkans. She has worked for Booz Allen on USAID and other international development projects and for USAID Missions directly for 15 years. She has over 10 years experience in domestic development; much of it related to economic growth and training.

Before joining Booz Allen, Sally served as Deputy Director in the Massachusetts State Office of Manpower Affairs and Economic Development where she was responsible for special private sector projects funded under the Department of Labor grant to the state. Prior to this, she served as the training manager for the Massachusetts Balance of State Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, and training coordinator in continuing education for Bentley College, Waltham, MA and Chapman College, Orange, CA.

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David Cowles, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

Mr. Cowles is a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton working in the areas of trade, competitiveness, and enterprise development. He has over 23 years of broad-based international experience while serving with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Booz Allen Hamilton. He has held numerous management positions providing leadership in private sector development, international business, and economic analysis. Mr. Cowles has focused on trade, competitiveness, and private enterprise development as drivers of economic growth and poverty reduction. In addition, as a senior official, he represented the United States (U.S.) Government in international meetings and forums throughout the world, acting as an expert lecturer and discussant on trade and competitive issues. Mr. Cowles won a Superior Honor Award for pioneering work in Hungary, designed to deal with work force dislocations related to the transition from a command to a market economic system.

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Reginald K. Hodges, Opportunities Industrialization Centers International, Inc.

Mr. Hodges has over thirty years experience and demonstrated effectiveness with development organizations involved in human capacity development, primarily in Africa. He has worked with OICI since 1976 as a technical advisor, program advisor and executive supervisor for vocational training and post-war rehabilitation programs. Most recently, Mr. Hodges was responsible for overseeing OICI education programs in Liberia, Sierra Leona, Nigeria, Lesotho and South Africa. As the Director of Operations for Africa with The International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH), Mr. Hodges was based in Lagos, Nigeria and was responsible for coordination of program activities in agriculture, basic education, technical education and experiential education programs. He designed an experiential training program to train 5000 farmers in Northern Nigeria and supervised feasibility studies for new IFESH initiatives in Angola, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. Mr. Hodges has extensive experience with organizing in-service training programs for teachers, conference/seminar planning, design and implementation of over thirty successful youth education/training programs in a variety of technical areas and countries in Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America.

After 21 years residence in African countries, Mr. Hodges has an in-depth knowledge of African culture, history and education systems and speaks two African languages, Mende and Krio. He also spent seven year in the Peace Corps in various capacities including country director for Sierra Leone. His publications include: Victims of Traumatic Experiences and the Healing Process (1992) and Rebel, Freedom Fighter, Combatant or Victim? (1993)

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Ronald C. Israel, Education Development Center, Inc.

Mr. Israel joined EDC in 1979 and has been Vice President and Director of EDC's Global Learning Group (formerly, International Programs) since 1984. As Vice President and Director, he has designed and managed many EDC international projects, including ones on curriculum design, teacher training, and educational planning. Mr. Israel has worked with groups of scholars and teachers from around the world, and has facilitated projects within a broad array of cultural settings. His most recent work has focused on promoting cross-cultural networks and dialogue, and the development of engaging instructional design for secondary school teaching and learning. He has recently finished directing EDC's successful Earth Education Partnership Program, an initiative that developed environmental case studies for use in secondary schools in the U.S., Costa Rica, and the Netherlands. Mr. Israel serves on the EDC Executive Committee and chairs the organization-wide Technology Strategy Group. From 1979 to 1884, Mr. Israel served as a Program Director for EDC, managing a $4.5 M contract funded by the United States Agency for International Development. The contract provided technical support on the use of mass media, social marketing, and training for nutrition and public health projects in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East. Mr. Israel holds an M.A. from the University of Syracuse's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and an M.A. in African Studies from the University of Birmingham, England. He speaks French and Spanish.

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Kevin Murphy, Development Informatics

Mr. Murphy has served as CEO of J.E. Austin Associates since 1986 and is a shareholder and director of Development Informatics since 1999. Mr. Murphy has helped pioneer USAID’s tools and approaches related to private sector development, competitiveness and workforce development. In 1987, he co-authored USAID’s Manual for Action in the Private Sector (MAPS), implemented by the Agency in 18 countries. In 1998, he was asked by USAID to develop its methodology for USAID Competitiveness Initiatives, which have been implemented in 15 countries. The methodology, pioneered by Mr. Murphy at J.E. Austin Associates, has gained wide acceptance at USAID and among USAID implementing partners. Mr. Murphy also played a supporting role in USAID’s early workforce development programs in South Africa and Egypt that helped lead to USAID’s current global initiative. Mr. Murphy has served as team leader for competitiveness initiatives in ten countries where they have often identified workforce development initiatives such as those being undertaken by industry clusters in Sri Lanka. He has helped implement surveys of businesses that have highlighted workforce development deficiencies.

As CEO of J.E. Austin Associates, Mr. Murphy has had overall responsibility for the successful implementation of 420 projects in 105 emerging economies. Prior to that, he served as team leader for a USAID project that created a management-training institute at an agricultural college in the Dominican Republic. He also worked on the executive education team preparing the annual agribusiness seminar and authored 10 HBS case studies. He began his career in 1978 working for a federation of 85 campesino education centers in Colombia. Mr. Murphy also comes from a family of educators including two teachers, one superintendent of schools (Davis, California) and one deputy superintendent of schools.

His formal training includes a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University (1982), a Bachelors of Science degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University (1977), a degree in theology from the University of Louvain (Belgium) and an Associates of Arts Degree from Pasadena City College. And when the tools of business management, public administration, economics and diplomacy fail, he has been known to resort to theology!

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Stuart Rosenfeld, Regional Technology Strategies

Dr. Rosenfeld is President and Principal, Regional Technology Strategies. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.S., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and Ed.D. in Education Planning, Social Policy, and Administration from Harvard University. Rosenfeld has written one and contributed to three Congressionally mandated studies of vocational education; organized the Trans-Atlantic Technology and Training Alliance, a “learning” consortium of U.S., European, and South African colleges that undertakes cooperative and innovative project; catalogued benchmark practices at colleges that have helped local economies for USDA (2001), and currently manages a grant form the Ford Foundation to stimulate innovate links between technical colleges and regional economies. He has directed economic development and workforce studies in Florida, Oregon, New York, Mississippi, and Virginia, led seven state delegations to study best practices in Europe. For ten years he served as deputy director of the Southern Growth Policies Board, a regional compact of 13 states and Puerto Rico. Dr. Rosenfeld is a Senior Policy Fellow with the Southern Growth Policies Board and Senior Research Associate with the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Recent Publications include: Learning.now: Skills for an Information Economy, American Association of Community Colleges, 2001; Technical College, Technology Deployment, and Regional Development, Stock-Taking Paper for International Conference on Building Competitive Regional Economies, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Modena, Italy, 1998; A Governor’s Guide to Cluster-Based Economic Development Strategies, National Governors’ Association, 2002; Smart Systems: Economic Development Strategies for Less Favoured Regions, European Union, 2002; and Just Clusters: Strategies for Reaching More People and Places, RTS, 2002.

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Lynn Salinger, Associates for International Resources and Development

Ms. Salinger leads AIRD’s Center for Trade and Private Sector Development. She holds degrees in political science, German, and international development economics from Tufts University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Since 1984, she has advised government and private sector leaders in Africa, Eastern Europe, Mexico, and Asia. Her clients have included Ministries of Commerce and Trade, Foreign Affairs, Industry, and Agriculture, private sector associations, and international development agencies.

In the area of competitiveness research, Ms. Salinger has worked on both quantitative and qualitative analyses of competitiveness in agriculture, manufacturing, and service industries in developing countries around the globe. She has advised textile and clothing sectors on trade competitiveness and implications for workforce development strategies in South Africa, Viet Nam, Mali, and Uganda. She also has extensive experience preparing comparative advantage and competitiveness analyses for a variety of clients in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Romania, Mexico, as well as sub-Saharan Africa, as they open their markets to increased interaction with regional and global trading partners.

Ms. Salinger also has extensive experience in the area of trade capacity building. In late 2002, she lead a team to Morocco to evaluate trade capacity needs of key actors from both the public and private sectors with respect to negotiation and implementation of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with the US. She also has broad experience in the analysis of opportunities for enhanced US and local trade and investment in sub-Saharan Africa under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.

Another one of Ms. Salinger’s areas of specialization is with respect to poverty reduction analyses. She has led and participated in teams helping development agencies such as USAID and the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD define their poverty reduction approaches and ensure that the benefits of globalization reach the poor. She has prepared analyses of the conceptual, approaches, management practices, and country level operations of the World Bank, USAID, and the IMF with respect to poverty and its related dimensions.

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Amanda Schwartz, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

Amanda Schwartz is a consultant with over 6 years of experience in private and public sector international business development. She has been a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton for over 3 years, supporting business development of global economic growth projects funded by USAID and other international donor and multi-lateral lending institutions. Ms. Schwartz’s technical assistance has been focused on projects designed to improve developing countries’ regional and global competitiveness, in the areas of economic growth and development, competitiveness, data dissemination and international financial institution building. Prior to her work at Booz Allen, Ms. Schwartz was an analyst for Arthur Andersen where she researched and identified market opportunities and provided economic growth analysis for projects in emerging markets worldwide.

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Steven Wisman, Opportunities Industrialization Centers International, Inc.

Steven J. Wisman is OICI's Vice President for Education and Training Programs. His twenty-four years of experience in overseas development includes eleven years of managerial and technical assignments in South Africa, Sierra Leone and Liberia. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger. Since 1985 his work for OICI and its partner, IFESH, has included the provision of project design, training and technical assistance services undertaken to develop education and training programs in fifteen sub-Saharan African countries. His background includes experience in the areas of capacity building, microenterprise development and conflict resolution. He possesses a Masters Degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Claremont College, Los Angeles, California.

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