Robert is currently a consultant in strategic planning, continuous improvement, and process management, assisting school districts that are serious about creating exceptional learning environments for students and satisfying professional working environments for staff. He was most recently the director of planning and quality programs for Community Consolidated School District 15, Palatine, Illinois. In this role, he was responsible for all aspects of organizational improvement, from the classroom to the boardroom. Robert introduced the Baldrige Criteria to the district and trained board members, all administrators, the professional teaching staff, and support staff in the principles and practices of continuous improvement. Robert was also responsible for all strategic planning activities and for the development and management of assessment processes and the district education data warehouse. He was the primary author of two state and two national Baldrige applications. The second state application won the highest recognition from the Lincoln Quality Foundation and the second national Baldrige application resulted in the 2003 Baldrige Award for District 15, the only educational organization to win the award that year and one of four school districts in the nation to ever win the award. Prior to his District 15 experience, Robert worked for Mid-Continent Research in Education and Learning (McREL) in Aurora, Colorado, as a senior associate. During his time there, McREL developed a national reputation for developing practical materials for all segments of education that bridged gaps between educational research and practice. Robert was also a supervisor of three statewide school improvement projects for the Colorado Department of Education, a federal programs coordinator for a seven-school district cooperative, and a high school social science teacher. As a consultant, he most often works with senior leaders to develop or refine strategic plans, deploy plans, align organizational systems, develop process management and improvement methodology, develop assessment metrics, build district-level scorecards, and apply continuous process improvement principles and practices. Robert has been an Illinois Lincoln Foundation examiner, a senior examiner, and an application judge. He is currently on the board of directors, is the lead judge, and trains examiners for the Louisiana Quality Foundation. He is also the coauthor of a book published by the American Society for Quality entitled Charting Your Course: Lessons Learned During the Journey Toward Performance Excellence, which has been an ASQ best seller. He has written or contributed to articles about data warehousing and analysis and the principles and practices of continuous improvement.