I have the honor of leading the Financial Aid Office and Business Office teams to serve our students in caring and effective ways.

I guide Financial Aid processing, Student Billing and Debt Collections efforts for our university. With a very capable team, we serve our students in efficient and effective ways, giving them as many funding and payment options as possible to cover their educational expenses. It is a pleasure for me to also contribute substantially to development of our enrollment recruitment strategies, particularly in maximizing the attractiveness of our financial incentives for new freshmen and transfer students to attend ACU.

I directed all Financial Aid processing, delivery and communications for the students at Indiana Wesleyan University on both our residential campus and nonresidential adult learners. I was hired to reestablish strong ties with both the U.S. Department of Education and our state grant entity after some required federal processes were unfortunately administered incorrectly, which strained relationships. During my tenure we completely restored trust in the quality of work my teams performed. This turn around was so effective that when we later had a federal program review, we were given a rare "Expedited Final Program Review Determination Letter" affirming the completely compliant quality of our federal student aid processes. They were so impressed with the precision and accuracy of our work that they cut their review short and commended us as an example for others. I directly sparked federal regulatory development on an issue of high concern for my students and staff, helped preserve state aid eligibility for our adult online students when new legislation was proposed that would have eliminated our their eligibility and guided my teams to overcome historically backlogged processing delays.For my efforts, I received the IWU President's Award for Meritorious Service.

Inspired my team to increase on-time financial aid delivery by over $10,000,000 during my first year! We surpassed that mark annually thereafter. I led extensive training for all of my 21 staff, developed a university scholarship search tool, improved cooperative work efforts with our Admissions Office team and served as a major contributor to the President's Enrollment Management Task Force.

Care. That was the primary word I helped spark within our department when I first took the helm. Our students were having trouble seeing that we cared for their needs or for them personally. With the change of focus to become student-centered, we renewed our office spirit into one which became welcoming and helpful. I enacted a proactive scholarship search service through which when we learned of a local, regional or national scholarship opportunity we would find every student attending SWOSU who met the minimum criteria for the award and would send them the information encouraging them to apply. So whenever a student received such a notice they would instantly see that we specifically had them in mind. Besides helping some students obtain money for school they wouldn't have otherwise known about, it was a public relations windfall for the department. We became perceived as the student body's best friend. That was the kind of work environment I wanted to be a part of and my staff thrived in the renewed freshness of being heroes.

This is where I grew the most as a professional. Under the initial leadership of a truly great Southern gentleman, Mr. Tom Patterson, I was taught how to contribute substantially in every situation, lead with grace and to instill confidence in my team through delivering meaningful training and reassurance to them. I was introduced to what personal engagement could mean through voluntary work in both state and regional financial aid associations (GASFAA and SASFAA). During my time at KSC (then Kennesaw State College) I had the honor of serving on Gov. Zell Miller's HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarship Advisory Council as we created and launched the remarkably successful program. I was also very pleased to serve the College Board as a Beta-test site coordinator for the creation of PowerFAIDS, the financial aid management tool that is still actively used and complemented three decades later.