NMSI Staff
Sara Martinez Tucker, CEO
Sara Martinez Tucker is the CEO of the National Math + Science Initiative. NMSI’s mission is to improve student performance in the critical subjects of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Its programs transform teaching, transform schools and are transforming education in the U.S. She serves on the Boards of Directors of American Electric Power, a Fortune 200 company that is the nation’s largest transmitter and among the leading generators of electric power, and Xerox, a Fortune 125 company that is the world’s leading enterprise for business process and document management. Tucker also serves on Wal-Mart’s External Advisory Council, the University of Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees and Teach for America’s Board of Directors.
She most recently served as the under secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. She was nominated to that post, the nation's top higher education official, by President George W. Bush on September 5, 2006, and confirmed by the Senate on December 9, 2006. As under secretary, she oversaw all policies, programs and activities related to postsecondary education, vocational and adult education, and federal student aid.
Tucker’s personal accomplishments included the development and implementation of two signature programs to increase access to college: a joint initiative with the U.S. Treasury Department to make nearly $70 billion in 2008-09 federal student loans available during the nation’s financial crisis, an effort described by the Wall Street Journal as “one bright spot in a season of crises and bailouts,” and an innovative new website, college.gov, which helps students and families prepare for college. College.gov received Computerworld’s Laureate Medal for exceptional use of technology to better society.
In addition to the successful oversight of over $32 billion in disbursed appropriations and almost 5,600 discretionary awards, Tucker provided expert testimony before Congressional committees and special hearings, led policy discussions within the Administration and with trade associations, and led or represented the United States in international delegations.
Prior to joining the Department, Tucker worked for nine years as the CEO and president of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), where she pursued an aggressive goal to double the rate of Hispanics earning college degrees. In her time at the helm of HSF, Tucker raised $280 million for scholarships, growing annual scholarships from $3 million to over $25 million, and to launch community outreach programs to raise college expectations in Latino families and communities.
Prior to joining HSF in 1997, Tucker spent 16 years at AT&T, becoming the first Latina to reach the company's executive level. In her last assignment at the company, she served as a regional vice president for AT&T's Global Business Communications Systems, where she led a $400 million division to its highest profit levels. She also served as vice president for Consumer Operations, a $370 million operation with 6,500 employees serving AT&T's 80 million consumers. Under her leadership, this group contributed to the division's receipt of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award.
Born and raised in Laredo, Texas, she earned her bachelor's degree with honors in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. She worked for two years as a reporter for the San Antonio Express before returning to the University of Texas to earn her master's in business administration with high honors.
Among her many awards and honors, in 2005, Time magazine named her one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in the United States. Tucker has been named as an Outstanding Young Texas Ex and a Distinguished Alumna at The University of Texas at Austin and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Notre Dame, Boston College and the University of Maryland University College.
She and her husband, Greg, a management consultant, live in Dallas.
David W. Saba serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI). Prior to the merge of NMSI and Laying the Foundation (LTF) at the end of 2011, Dave served as CEO of LTF. Dave went to LTF to build the research base demonstrating LTF effectiveness, innovate by taking the LTF teacher training program online and provide a long term strategy for success. In a short period of time LTF was able to create a vision for success for LTF which will positively impact well over 100,000 students in the upcoming years. The LTF message of increased college access is already rapidly expanding into more than 14 states.
Dave previously served as Chief Executive Officer of the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) until March 2010. Dave was directly responsible for dramatically increasing the teacher recruitment efforts at ABCTE, having grown enrollments by over 300% and driving the organization to recruit over 9,500 potential teachers into its rigorous, self-paced online teaching certification program, while issuing more than 1,900 certifications to-date. The ABCTE program is now accepted in nine states, due to the outreach efforts of Dave and his team, and their work with legislators and state education administrators throughout the country.
Dave motivated the ABCTE team to create new opportunities to assist school districts in recruiting, certifying, and supporting excellent teachers essential for student success. Dave also led the organization to a financial position where ongoing operations continue without the need to request an extension of the initial government funds used to create the organization, a feat that is quite rare in the world of non-profits and almost unheard of in education. Prior to serving as CEO, Dave served as ABCTE’s Vice President of Development and Evaluation and was responsible for candidate recruitment, all test development, program evaluation, new program development and candidate resource development.
Before joining ABCTE, Dave served as the Mid Atlantic Regional Director for Kaplan Test Prep. He was able to dramatically improve the performance of the region through aggressive teacher recruitment and training, site expansion, strategic planning and marketing. Under his leadership, the region created partnerships with multiple school systems to deliver SAT Preparation and SES services. He implemented the first staff training program for the region and created the first large scale marketing plans. He was directly responsible for opening four new centers in his region, setting up a significant competitive advantage for Kaplan.
Dave is a Naval Academy graduate who served as a helicopter pilot in the Navy for 8 years and was awarded both the Battle E and Navy Achievement Medals. He completed his master’s degree in Engineering Management from the University of South Florida. He lives in Texas with his wife and two college-aged daughters.
Gregg Fleisher, CPO
Gregg Fleisher is the Chief Program Officer of NMSI. Gregg started his career as an auditor and actuary with Coopers & Lybrand but later decided to make a major career change to pursue his passion. In 1986, he began teaching math to high school students in the Dallas ISD. While teaching, he had one of the highest percentages of students pass the Advanced Placement Program calculus exam/per school enrollment of any public high school in the country. In 1993, Gregg was awarded the Advanced Placement Special Recognition Award by the Southwest Region of the College Board. In 1995, he became the lead math teacher in the new AP* Incentive Program.
During his five years as the lead math teacher, he had a strong record in helping minority students excel in AP courses. As much as 3.3 percent of the country’s minorities who passed AP Math Exams were from Gregg’s schools. In 1996, he formed his own consulting company with the goal of improving the PSAT prep program and increasing the number of National Merit Scholars in Dallas ISD. After one year, the number of National Merit Scholars doubled, and after four years, the number of students participating in the program more than tripled. In 2000, Gregg was asked by Dallas philanthropist, Peter O’Donnell, to head up Advanced Placement Strategies (APS) that manages AP Incentive programs for districts in the state of Texas. In seven years, the fledgling company grew from four to 60 employees, and had programs in hundreds of schools in the state. AP results increased significantly in each and every incentive program managed by APS, This increase was especially significant for minority students. The success of APS gave ExxonMobil cause to commit their largest grant ever to NMSI, in part to replicate APS in other states.
Patty Pickard is the Chief Financial Officer of NMSI and a Certified Public Accountant. During her career she has held senior level financial and management positions in the finance, real estate development, oil and gas, and insurance industries. She served as CFO and COO of several multi-million dollar companies, as Senior Vice President of a multi-billion dollar public ally traded company and as a senior advisor and consultant in mergers of private and public companies.
In 2005 she decided to leave the private sector and enter the non-profit world. Since that time she has served as the CFO for the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas where she was responsible for all financial and IT operations for the $65 million enterprise.
She has worked with many non-profit organizations as a volunteer or board member, and is a co-founder of the Pickard Scholarship Fund. The Fund awards college scholarships to African-American males fulfilling certain educational criteria, and was established to honor her late husband, Dr. Dan J. Pickard, who devoted substantial time and resources during his life in South Dallas.
She is native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Indiana University.
Sue Payne joined the National Math and Science Initiative in 2011.
A native of Hickory Flat, Georgia, Ms. Payne graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics.
Ms. Payne joined Mobil in 1976 as a geoscientist in Dallas, Texas. During her 35 years with Mobil, and now ExxonMobil, her management and operations experiences have afforded her a variety of assignments. She has been Planning Manager for ExxonMobil Exploration Company; U.S. Area Exploration Manager; Geoscience Operations Manager for ExxonMobil Production Company; Vice President for Mobil’s Onshore U.S. Producing Business; Commercial and Negotiations Manager for Mobil New Business Development in Latin America; and an advisor at Mobil’s corporate headquarters. Ms. Payne has held positions in Lagos, Nigeria; New Orleans, Louisiana; Fairfax, Virginia; Dallas and Houston, Texas.
Before assuming her current position at NMSI, her role as Geoscience Resource Manager encompassed managing the training, career development, and project deployment for more than 1,500 geoscientists in ExxonMobil’s worldwide operations; and providing specialist geoscience technical support for ExxonMobil Upstream projects.
A member of numerous charitable and civic organizations, Ms. Payne has recently completed her second term as Co-Chairman of the United Way of Greater Houston Women’s Initiative and is an active member of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. She also was recently named one of “Houston’s 50 Most Influential Women” by Houston Women’s Magazine.
John Winn has a distinguished career in education policy and a lifelong commitment to quality education for all students. An educator for 35 years, he began his career as an elementary and middle school teacher. He joined the Florida Department of Education in 1984 and served in several responsible positions including Deputy Commissioner and Chief of Staff before being appointed to Commissioner of Education in August 2004. In February 2007 he retired from Commissioner of Education and began his work as an education consultant.
He has joined the National Math and Science Initiative in March 2007 as the Chief Program Officer. NMSI is a nonprofit corporation founded to have a national impact in increasing the preparation and production of students going into careers in mathematics, engineering, computer sciences and other sciences.
In 1999 Winn joined Governor Bush as his Education Policy Coordinator. While in that position, he was responsible for drafting and directing the Governor's education budget recommendations and legislative initiatives for all education sectors. These included the A+ Plan for Education, One Florida programs, K20 education system, and charter district legislation. He was also instrumental in crafting the John McKay Scholarship authorizing legislation. While in this position, he played a major role in developing the concept and implementation of measuring annual student learning gains, school grading formula, and the K20 data warehouse.
Winn returned to the Department of Education with Commissioner Jim Horne to assist in the restructuring of the Department of Education and the K20 education system. Since returning he coordinated the massive restructuring of the Florida School Code, centralized all data and accountability operations, and participated in selecting a high performing senior staff.
During his tenure as Commissioner student achievement in Reading and Mathematics reached an all time high. The achievement gap closed considerably and students with disabilities and limited English proficiency more than doubled their reading improvement. Also, Florida led the nation in the percentage of high school graduates taking at least one Advanced Placement exam. Over the past three years Florida has rated in the top three states in the increase of minority students taking and passing AP exams.
John Winn has built a solid reputation as an authority in statewide implementation of innovative education improvements and on policy issues facing public education at every level. He is respected throughout the Florida education community and nationally. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated commitment and compassion in improving education quality for all students.
Clay Mulford, NMSI General Counsel
Clay Mulford has served as NMSI’s outside counsel since he retired as NMSI’s Vice President and COO in 2011. Clay joined NMSI during its formation, and assisted in the establishment of its operations and all aspects of its activities.
Prior to joining NMSI, he was a corporate and recruiting lawyer and a partner with Jones Day and, earlier, with Hughes & Luce (now KLGates), where he was a member of the firm’s executive over management committees. He served as lead counsel in numerous high-profile mergers and public offerings and on several national ABA Committees.
Clay has served as a fellow and resident lecturer at Harvard University in 1995 and a guest lecturer at Oxford University, University of Virginia, Harvard College, University of Virginia School of Law, Princeton University, Northeastern University, UCLA and Austin College.
He has also been a featured speaker on many occasions for the Annenberg Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the Carnegie Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the British American Project of SAIS and the 20th Century Fund. He has appeared in numerous television and print interviews, including as a commentator on CBS, CNN, CSPAN, NBC, and PBS, served on a national advisory committee for the League of Women Voters, and his testimony has been requested before the U.S. Congress. Articles and commentaries include those published by the Journal of Law and Politics, the Gannett Foundation, Harvard University Press, Northwestern University, the University of Virginia School of Law, Northeastern University, the ABA, Social Policy Magazine, the Kennedy School, the Freedom Forum, and the Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy.
He is a current or former trustee or board member of Dedman College at SMU, the Episcopal School of Dallas, St. Mark’s School of Texas, KERA/North Texas Public Broadcasting, The Dallas Museum of Art, the Dallas Zoo, Baylor Hospital Foundation, The Campaign Legal Center, The Campaign Finance Institute, FAIR Vote and KidsVoting USA. He also serves as a director of several public and private corporations.
He is an honors graduate of Amherst College and the law and business schools of the University of Virginia.