School Wise Press™ Staff

Staff

Biographical information for staff members appears below the masthead.

MANAGEMENT TEAM	SALES AND MARKETING	EDITORIAL	PRODUCTION, TECHNOLOGY, AND DESIGN
Steve Rees Greg Smith Robert Ross Lee Smith Seiden Jeff Angus	Alison Nakashima Jorge Navarro	Susan Garratt Amanda Zeier	Bridget Smith Gary Jones Lauren Mahakian Rick Tran Jenny Chen

MANAGEMENT TEAM

STEVE REES, PRESIDENT, EDITOR, AND PUBLISHER. Before launching the company in 1995, Mr. Rees worked in magazine publishing management and consulting for more than 15 years. He developed expertise in strategic planning, acquisition reviews, and circulation direction. During this period, he edited and published a trade newsletter on mass customization and lectured at the Stanford Publishing Program. He is the father of two. Since 2001, he has written "The Owl" a newsletter about accountability policy for education leadership, and "SARC Bites," another newsletter on accountability practice.

GREG SMITH, TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR. Greg Smith is a technology advisor, database developer, programmer, and systems analyst. He has worked in computer journalism and small business systems consulting for 15 years. He has contributed to a variety of publications, including InfoWorld and PC World, where he directed their testing and usability labs.

ROBERT ROSS, PRODUCTION MANAGER. Mr. Ross runs the publishing operations and staff that produce accountability reports in print and online. His prior experience includes sales and customer service in two high-tech companies, where he gained expertise in helping people use new technologies. In addition to making sure the day-to-day production operations are running smoothly, Mr. Ross also advises our school district clients on ways to display their accountability reports properly on the Web. Mr. Ross is a graduate of the San Francisco Unified School District.

JEFF ANGUS, DIRECOR OF OPERATIONS. Jeff Angus has been a management coach and public lecturer. His book, "Management by Baseball," was published in 2006 by Harper Collins, and is evidence of his expertise in both disciplines. He is also a statistician and member of the Society for the Advancement of Baseball Research. He has popularized baseball statistics for the Seattle Times, and also covered baseball in Seattle as a reporter for the Associated Press. His experience as a reporter and columnist in the computer journalism world prepares him well to contribute to our publishing team here at School Wise Press.

LEE SMITH SEIDEN, SENIOR PROJECT EDITOR. Before joining School Wise Press in 2005, Ms. Seiden worked as a freelance proofreader, a computer programmer, and a substitute teacher. She has two children enrolled in the San Francisco Unified School District, where she has been an active parent volunteer. Ms. Seiden holds a BS degree in psychology and elementary education from the State University of New York at New Paltz and a certificate in computer programming from New York University.

SALES AND MARKETING

ALISON NAKASHIMA, MARKETING DIRECTOR. Before joining School Wise Press in 2005, Ms. Nakashima worked with Educational Testing Service as a consultant to district staff on the California STAR testing program. Her additional work experience includes running a tutoring program for AmeriCorps and working in academic publishing. In her spare time, she is a board member and volunteer with a nonprofit mentoring program that pairs Asian American high school students with adult mentors. Ms. Nakashima has a BA in Mathematics from Oberlin University.

JORGE NAVARRO, CLIENT SERVICES ADVISOR. Jorge Navarro comes to School Wise Press with more than 17 years experience in public education. As a Pre-Doctoral Fellow and Doctoral Candidate (Ph.D.) at the University of Florida, Mr. Navarro conducted research in bilingual education. Prior to that, he taught high school English for five years. In 1993, Mr. Navarro was named Lecanto High School’s Teacher of the Year. In 2000, Mr. Navarro became a teaching artist and administrator at the Creative Arts Team, an educational theatre company in residence at the City University of New York. While there, he also conducted Professional Developments for aspiring principals and led corporate training sessions. Most recently, he served as the ELL Coordinator at Everett Middle School, in San Francisco. Mr. Navarro holds a M.Ed. in Secondary English Education, and a B.A. in English from the University of Florida.

EDITORIAL

SUSAN GARRATT, PROJECT EDITOR. Ms. Garratt’s editing experience includes illustrated book publishing and editing in the fields of engineering, ophthalmology, and education. She has combined her editing career with substantial volunteering in the classrooms of her two children and has been a member of the Mill Valley School District's PTA executive board for 12 years. In addition to working at School Wise Press, Ms. Garratt volunteers in the career planning office at her local high school. Ms. Garratt holds a BA in English from Wells College.

AMANDA ZEIER, PROJECT EDITOR. Before joining School Wise Press, Ms. Zeier worked as a Project Editor for Prima Games, a division of Random House and the industry leader in video-game strategy guides. A Bay Area native, she recently returned to Marin County after living in Davis for several years. Ms. Zeier holds a BA in both Political Science and English from University of California, Davis.

DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTION

BRIDGET SMITH, DESIGN DIRECTOR. Ms. Smith is a graphic designer specializing in report and Web site design. Prior to her tenure at School Wise Press she was art director for California Lawyer magazine. Her awards include a Society of Illustrators citation for art direction and several Western Publications Association Maggie Awards. Her juvenile fantasy novel The Forest in the Hallway was published by Clarion Books in November 2006.

GARY JONES, IT OPERATIONS MANAGER. Gary began his career designing and installing production control systems in the oil fields and coal mines of Wyoming. As a contract engineer for companies such as Amoco, Amax, Union 76, Sun Oil, and ARCO, he worked primarily on Allen Bradley PLC networks that were controlled from a single command center and transmitted real-time production data to the individual company data centers. After moving to California in the early 1980's, he acquired more than 20 years experience in the information technology industry, primarily in network and systems integration and management, and software and database development. Before joining School Wise Press, he worked as a network and IT specialist, enterprise systems senior software engineer, and database developer for Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and ADP.

LAUREN MAHAKIAN, PRODUCTION ASSISTANT. Ms. Mahakian is a San Francisco native who graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School. She began her career with School Wise Press as a high school summer intern and has since been with the company for three years. Her organizational skills, work ethic, and fast and accurate hand-eye coordination enables the production office to run efficiently. Ms. Mahakian currently attends California State University, Fresno.

NGHIA QUANG (RICK) TRAN, DESKTOP PUBLISHING TECHNICIAN. Mr. Tran has worked in various fields prior to coming to School Wise Press. He was a computer technician for a small firm in his home town of Sacramento, California. He trained as a certified fitness instructor with 24 HourFitness, where he designed fitness programs to help clients improve their health. In 2004, he came to San Francisco to pursue a BA in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. After completing school, he worked briefly with the Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs in the area of equal employment opportunities.

JENNY CHEN, STUDENT INTERN. This fall, Ms. Chen will be a senior at Lowell High School, one of San Francisco's premier public schools. Jenny's office skills became immediately apparent this summer, as her tremendous work ethic, and a sharp eye for to detail have enhanced School Wise Press operations considerably. When she's not in school, or handling a variety of tasks here at the shop, Ms. Chen volunteers at the Chinese Hospital. In her spare time, she enjoys reading romance novels, shopping (calling it her "favorite sport!") and paddling for the Community Youth Center's Chinese Dragon Boat Racing Team. Upon graduation, Jenny hopes to attend Harvard.

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