Consultants
John Stevens, Ed.D.
Dr. Stevens has more than thirty years of higher education experience in strategic planning, institutional organization and governance, process redesign, financial planning, information system selection and implementation, collective bargaining and executive search. He has provided consulting service to more than seventy independent and public institutions from our nation's largest universities to its smallest colleges and schools, specializing in small to mid-sized institutions and the process of strategic change within them.
In 2003, after 16 years at another higher education consulting firm, Dr. Stevens began Stevens Strategy, an independent consulting practice specializing in the development of strategy for colleges, universities and schools. At his previous firm, he served as its Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and the head of its Strategy Consulting Practice. He has served as Assistant to the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, Vice President for Administration of Rhode Island School of Design, and Assistant to the President of Boston University and President and Chairman of the Board of Little Red Schoolhouse, Inc. He has also served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of New England College, a small residential, liberal arts college in Henniker, New Hampshire. He served there as interim president on a pro bono basis, as well.
Dr. Stevens is currently a member of the New England College Board of Trustees and the New School Jazz Program Board of Governors. He also serves as a mentor at Harvard University Graduate School of Education and a member of an international Board of Advisors to the Shala Valley Project, an effort to trace the origins and evolution of settlement in Northern Albania from the earliest times to the present. He holds the B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Ed.M. and Ed.D. degrees from Harvard University.
Robert J. DeColfmacker, M.P.A.
Robert DeColfmacker has over 25 years experience in higher education, entrepreneurship and nonprofit governance. His higher education experience includes time spent as a faculty member, administrator, college president and trustee. Bob also has significant entrepreneurial experience in education and in the formation and development of private business enterprises. He has successfully guided turnarounds of schools and colleges and private businesses. Bob also has significant nonprofit governance experience, having spent time as trustee and commissioner in both higher education and healthcare related enterprises. His interest and expertise lies in strategic management and financial planning for colleges and universities. Prior to joining Stevens Strategy, Bob was Managing Director of Learning Tools, Inc. and has recently been elected to the Board of Trustees of Southern New Hampshire University. Bob holds a B.S. degree in Economics and Finance from Southern New Hampshire University and an M.P.A. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Brendan D. Leonard, M.B.A.
Mr. Leonard has nearly 20 years of management experience in the higher education and health care industries. He has spent the last 10 years consulting primarily in the higher education industry, focusing on strategic planning, process redesign, systems implementation, and human resources systems assessment and design. His higher education clients include Barry University, Berklee College of Music, Colorado Mountain College, Drexel University, Eastern Michigan University, Gwynedd-Mercy College, Holy Family University, Howard University, Immaculata University, Ithaca College, LaGuardia Community College, Marian Court College, New England College, Penn State College of Medicine, Rollins College, University of Montana, Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology, Vermont State College System, and Wheelock College. In addition, Brendan spent 7 years working in health care financial planning, financial reporting and analysis, and systems implementation. Prior to joining Stevens Strategy, in 2003, Brendan served as Senior Associate at Kaludis Consulting and Senior Consultant for HCm, Inc. He holds a B.A. degree from Haverford College and an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
Susan Leonard, S.P.H.R.
Susan Leonard has over 16 years of human resources experience, including 6 in higher education specifically. She has actively practiced and provided direct oversight for all human resources functions in both academic and business settings. Her most recent institutional position was Interim Assistant Vice President and Executive Director of Human Resources at Eastern Michigan University. In that position, she managed a staff of 20 professionals providing HR consultation and service to 2,200 employees at a 24,000-student institution. Susan successfully directed the implementation of the human resources/payroll module of the SCT Banner ERP system. She has achieved the highest professional designation in the field of human resources, Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society of Human Resource Management. Her Stevens Strategy clients have included Colorado Mountain College, Holy Family University, and Immaculata University. She holds B.S. degrees in Organizational Communications and Psychology from Eastern Michigan University.
Mike Townsley, Ph.D.
Dr. Townsley has more than 20 years of experience in academic services, financial systems, budgets, marketing strategy, payment plans, IT administration, ancillary operations, and site management. Mike is Senior Consultant with Stevens Strategy and former President of Pennsylvania Institute of Technology. During his twenty years as Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration at Wilmington College, he played a key role in making it one of the fastest growing private colleges in the country. He is the author of The Small College Guide to Financial Health: Beating the Odds and CD's entitled The Financial Toolbox for Colleges and Universities and The Strategic Turnaround Toolbox, all published by NACUBO between 2002 and 2005. Dr. Townsley holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation analyzed the impact of market share on pricing policies. He also holds degrees from University of Delaware and Purdue University. His additional training includes work with Lily Endowment and Columbia University. Dr. Townsley has published widely and conducted studies on the financial structure of colleges, universities, and for profit institutions.
HEEA Consultants Joining Stevens Strategy
Stevens Strategy is pleased to welcome the following HEEA consultants to our firm:
Thomas Emmet, Ph.D.
Elise Burton, J.D.
Robert L. Heiny, Ph.D.
Thomas Henry, Ph.D.
Stephen Lazarus, J.D.
Robert W. Seurkamp
Thomas A. Emmet, Ph.D.
Thomas A. Emmet, founder of HEEA, has been a consultant to over 1,900 Higher Education Institutions of all types since 1954. He started his consulting in the area of student services specializing in diversity, student development, and ombudspersons. Higher Education Executive Associates was founded by Dr. Emmet in 1967. The consulting services were expanded to include seminars on Legal Ownership of Catholic Colleges, Department Chairs and Dean Leadership, Collective Bargaining Negotiations in Higher Education, and numerous other cutting edge issues. He was senior advisor on leadership programs for the American Council on Education in the 1980's and early 1990's. Dr. Emmet taught the A.C.E. Fellows program for twenty five years. At A.C.E., he instituted the Seminars on Faculty Handbooks and Policy Manuals. In addition, Dr. Emmet worked at and with Regis University from 1971 to the present and now is a retired but active Senior Consultant to the President. While at Regis, he helped develop the Regis Adult Learning and Professional Studies Programs. Much of his consulting is also in adult learning systems. He has numerous university degrees in humanities and higher education administration including three honorary doctorates, one of Laws from St. Norbert College, one of Educational Leadership from Quincy University, and one from Regis University in Humane Letters. Dr. Emmet has worked with over three hundred Boards of Trustees and was the Association of Governing Boards' first consultant, setting up their Seminar programs for Trustees and Presidents in the 1970's.
Elise M. Burton, J.D.
Elise Burton comes to Stevens Strategy from HEEA. She is a senior consultant and is an affiliate faculty member with the Master of Nonprofit Management Program at Regis University. She has extensive experience in higher education and nonprofit legal issues with a focus on higher education policy, compliance and governance. Elise teaches Legal Issues for Nonprofit Organizations both in the classroom and online for Regis. She is also a co-creator and frequent teacher of the Service Oriented Field Experience (SOFE) described in her chapter, "Distance and Service Learning in the Accelerated Format," in New Directions in Adult and Continued Education, Jossey-Bass (Spring 2003). Elise has co-authored and is currently updating a reference text for Colorado nonprofit organizations, Colorado Nonprofit Management: Understanding The Legal Issues, Bradford Publishing Company, Denver Colorado (May, 2004). She is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys and serves on its Publications Committee. Elise received her A.B. in Political Science from Barnard College; holds a Masters in Nonprofit Management from Regis University, which she obtained as a Fellow of The Colorado Trust; and has a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Robert L. Heiny, Ph.D.
Bob Heiny comes to Stevens Strategy from HEEA. He is a professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC). He has completed over 125 faculty salary studies for higher education institutions over the past 20 years. He uses a variety of statistical techniques to model salary structures to assess the importance of a wide variety of factors including the possibility of age, gender or ethnic discrimination. He has also served as Executive Assistant to the President and as Interim Director of Athletics during his tenure at UNC. He received a B.S in mathematics from Colorado College and an M.S. and Ph.D in mathematical statistics from Colorado State University.
Thomas A. Henry, Ed.D.
Thomas A. Henry comes to Stevens Strategy from HEEA. His campus experience includes more than 24 years of faculty and administrative responsibilities at the two-year college level. His administrative assignments included college resource development and the Foundation, technical program development, and collective bargaining. For 11 years, he served in the New Jersey Department of Education as the Assistant Commissioner/Director responsible for Adult Education and Vocational/Technical Education at the secondary and postsecondary levels. He has served on numerous national boards dealing with collective bargaining, legislative affairs, resource development, school to work transition, and workforce development. Dr. Henry is a co-founder of the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium. The Consortium, which functions as the Sea Grant College for the state, is an alliance of two-year and four-year colleges and universities conducting education and research programs in the state. Dr. Henry has degrees from La Salle College, the University of Pennsylvania and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Stephen Lazarus, J.D.
Stephen Lazarus comes to Stevens Strategy from HEEA. He has experience in higher education issues with a focus on higher education policy, compliance and governance. Through his affiliation with HEEA, Stephen's higher education clients include Bethany College, D'Youville College, Fontbonne University, Friends University, Emerson College, Gannon University, Huston-Tillotson University, Lourdes College, Medaille College, Nebraska Methodist College, Saint Leo University, Spalding University, Saint Joseph College, Saint Xavier University, Thiel College, and the University of San Diego. Prior to joining HEEA, Stephen spent 7 years practicing law with a focus on insurance defense litigation and employment law. He holds a B.A. degree from Loyola University, New Orleans and a J.D. from the Catholic University of America.
Robert W. Seurkamp
Robert W. Seurkamp comes to Stevens Strategy from HEEA. He has more than 30 years of experience in business management and consulting on all levels most recently as president of RWS Consulting, Inc. in Baltimore. His areas of expertise include human resource management, higher education, labor relations and strategic planning. Mr. Seurkamp was appointed Executive Director of the Governor's Workforce Investment Board (GWIB), effective August 18, 2003 and served until June 1, 2007. While in that position his most notable accomplishment was the development of an "Industry Initiative" process to identify, quantify and communicate the needs of industry to all partners of the workforce development system including all segments of higher education. Mr. Seurkamp's professional career has been distinguished by nearly 25 years as an executive with Xerox Corporation, much of that time with a focus on international projects. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees for the Caroline Center in Baltimore, is on the Board of Directors for the Maryland Institute for Workforce Excellence (MIWE), Chair of the GWIB Sub-Cabinet, a member of Maryland Rehabilitation Council, the Maryland State Chamber of Commerce, Maryland Economic Development Association, Maryland Regional Manufacturing Institute and has held membership in several other organizations, including the Penn Yan, N.Y. Chamber of Commerce and the Rochester Professional Consultants Network. Mr. Seurkamp was a member of the Maryland Education China mission 2006. He has been a guest speaker or panelist at numerous meetings and conferences around the country. He holds a B.S. degree from Empire State College in Rochester, New York and a Certificate in Labor Management Studies from Cornell University.