Biography

Early in his career, Vic left the world of mechanical engineering to begin his journey to figure out how a more equitable, effective, user-driven system of schooling for all students might be possible in America. He taught physics at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, while serving as director of the Math and Science for Minority Students Program (known as (MS)2), one of the nation’s first STEM programs committed to increasing the numbers of Black, Latino and American Indian students entering science, engineering, or medicine. During that time, Vic worked directly with public high schools across the country to improve learning outcomes for students and support better teaching, especially in math.

Faced with the challenge of impacting change at scale, Vic realized he needed to learn how to strategically leverage philanthropy and community-building to better align public resources and policies to more effectively support historically underserved communities and do what worked for them. Vic served as senior program officer for pre-collegiate education at the Cleveland Foundation, senior staff consultant for education at the Rockefeller Foundation (NYC), and a consultant and advisor to numerous other philanthropies, big and small.

He created the Learning Communities Network, Inc., a nonprofit technical assistance intermediary that exclusively supported national initiatives of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations for over a decade, and the Busara Group, a consulting group serving clients such as USAID, the Department for International Development in the U.K., school districts, and philanthropies such as the Heinz Endowments and Stuart Foundations.

In late 1989, Vic was hired by former Ambassador W. R. Timken, Jr., to come to Canton, OH, to launch and build the Stark Education Partnership, which became one of the nation’s first effective K-16 county-wide education collaboratives. That work of building complex community collaboratives to accomplish and sustain measurable results has shaped his worldview and approach to achieving scale. It led to his involvement in the early discussions that created KnowledgeWorks and Cincinnati’s Strive Partnership. A decade later, the work of the Strive Partnership would be labeled “collective impact.”

Between 2009 and 2015, he led the creation of Cornerstone Literacy, a teaching professional learning organization that integrated new knowledge of brain function, social and emotional learning and cognitive skills development in pioneering approaches to the teaching of reading. In 2015, Cornerstone Literacy merged with the Developmental Studies Center to create the Center for the Collaborative Classroom.

Vic is currently Director of the Accelerator for Learning and Leadership for South Carolina (ALL4SC) at the University of South Carolina. He is charged with helping build the capacity, partnerships, and resources to better position the university to support the transformation of schooling in South Carolina into equitable, student and family-focused community schooling that supports the development of every child from cradle to career. He advocates personalized learning as a way to operationalize and systematize equity.

His professional passion lies in helping non-profits, governments, and philanthropic leaders develop and deliver effective, scalable, and sustainable solutions to social problems. As a public speaker, Vic has had the privilege of addressing such diverse audiences as the Council on Foundations, the writers and producers for National Public Radio, the board of trustees of the Ford Foundation, and the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University to name a select few.

Vic currently serves as the finance and investment chair and vice-chair of the board of directors of KnowledgeWorks; a member of the board of directors of the Charleston Literary Festival; the State of South Carolina Broadband Advisory Council; and Renaissance Learning Advisory Board. He is a graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH, earned his BS in mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, holds an Ed.M. in administration, social policy, and planning from Harvard University, and completed his doctoral studies in management at Harvard. He is married with two adult children.