Ray Jones
Vice Chair | Vice President of Loan Programs, SC Student Loan
Ray Jones serves as the Vice President of Loan Programs at South Carolina Student Loan, where he oversees loan originations, repayment services, marketing and outreach, and default prevention for the corporation. With more than 25 years of experience in higher education finance, Mr. Jones has held a broad range of roles, including Loan Officer, repayment services specialist, and Assistant Program Director.
Mr. Jones is an active contributor to the state financial aid community, serving as a member of the Executive Board of the South Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (SCASFAA) and the South Carolina Teacher Loan Advisory Board. He attended Spartanburg Methodist College and the University of South Carolina in Lancaster and Columbia.
Diana Barber
Bryan Ashton serves as the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Trellis Company (formerly TG). In this capacity, he is responsible for leading the Higher Education Research and Consulting and Talent Pathway business lines for Trellis. Additionally, he leads Sales and Marketing, Government Affairs, and Community Investment for the organization.
Scott A. Giles
Melissa Neal
James B. (Jimmy) Parker
Bob Collins
Kelly Lipinski
Randy Heesacker is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Student Loan Program. He was one of the first employees of the company when it began in 1986 and previously served as Executive Vice President. In that capacity, he supervised many aspects of the agency’s business operations and provided strategic direction for the company. He has 30 years of experience leading and directing guaranty agency and business process outsourcing operations. In 2011, he led the launch of Inceptia, providing student counseling and financial aid processing services directly to institution of higher education. Mr. Heesacker graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a B.A. with dual majors in business administration and accounting. He is a member of the Nebraska Society of Certified Public Accountants
Dan Fisher currently serves as the President of Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC), which is one of the largest guaranty agencies in the Federal Family Education Loan Program and the designated guarantor for eight states. He oversees all of ECMC’s operational activities as well as student success initiatives, including financial literacy, college access, and national training efforts.
Chad Tate serves as the President of ECMC, accountable for guarantor operations and Project Success. He was previously the Senior Vice President of Operations at ECMC focused on leading positive change and driving efficiency. He has accountability for financial counseling, bankruptcy, claims, default prevention and collections. Prior to ECMC he worked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota for 25 years where he oversaw various operations and finance functions including claims, investments, and accounting. He led the business team that implemented the Affordable Care Act.
Scott D. Giles
Terry L. Muilenburg is responsible for representing Strada Education Network’s interests to the federal government, including the legislative and executive branches. She also works with other higher education access groups and studentloan administrators in advancing policies that promote the college preparedness, access, and success of students and families. Prior to becoming Senior Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer of Strada Education Network in 2014, she served as Senior Vice President, Government and Industry Relations for its parent company, USA Group, for over 20 years. Before joining USA Group in 1994, Ms. Muilenburg directed the Washington, DC, office of the State of Connecticut for then-Gov. Lowell Weicker. She also served as a key staff member on two U.S. Senate committees that have jurisdiction over higher education: the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies of the Appropriations Committee, as well as the panel now known as the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Additionally, Ms. Muilenburg has represented Strada Education Network on the Board of Directors of the National Council of Higher Education Resources since 2003, and has served on the Board of Directors of the National College Access Network since 2006. She is a graduate, with distinction, of the University of Virginia.
Christopher P. Chapman
Nathan Hench is Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, Guaranty, and Strategy for the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA). Mr. Hench joined PHEAA in 2005 as Vice President of Legislative and Board Affairs. In his current role, he oversees the Agency’s guaranty, strategy, public relations, state legislative affairs, marketing, communications, public service, and state grant, and special program functions.
Bill Norbert is the Governmental Affairs and Communications Manager at the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME), where he acts as liaison between the administration, legislature, and other state agencies. He also manages agency media communication initiatives and coordinate responses to inquiries from the press and others. He also is responsible for monitoring and responding to state and federal legislation that may affect the agency. Mr. Norbert develops support for FAME initiatives with various legislators, agencies, stakeholders, and public, as well as conducts legal research and review of legislation and commercial financing projects. Prior to joining FAME, Mr. Norbert was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Maine, where he worked in child support enforcement. He also served as a staff attorney at the Disability Rights Center of Maine, was a State Representative in the Maine Legislature for three terms, and a Law Clerk for both the U.S. District Court of Maine and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Mr. Norbert holds a B.A. in political science from Brown University and a J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law.
Angela Baier is Chief Executive Officer of CollegeInvest and College Assist. CollegeInvest administers Colorado’s 529 college savings program and College Assist administers the state’s federal student loan guaranty agency. Since 2009, Ms. Baier has been responsible for managing Colorado’s 529 program representing over $8.5 billion in assets under management and more than 375,000 families. She brings 30 years of senior level management, business development, and strategic planning expertise to her position.
Wendy H. McAlister serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of College Foundation, Inc. Ms. McAlister graduated from North Carolina State University in 1984 with a baccalaureate degree in accounting. She is a licensed Certified Public Accountant and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants. From 1985 until 1993, she worked for the public accounting firm of Koonce, Wooten & Haywood, CPAs in Raleigh, NC. In 1993, Ms. McAlister joined the Foundation as Vice President for Quality Assurance; she assumed responsibility for Financial Services in 1997. From 2003 to 2012, she served in the role of Senior Vice President.
Fred Lundquist is the Vice President of Sales for ConServe, a top performing accounts receivable management company. As a third-party collections agency, ConServe provides its unique synergy of analytics-driven technologies and customized collection services to optimize their clients’ debt collection results, increasing their return on investment.
Rob Lavet is responsible for managing all legal affairs, compliance and government relations for SoFi and its affiliate entities. He also has management responsibility for SoFi’s Internal Audit group. SoFi is a leading online lender based in San Francisco and was named one of the ten top startup companies by CNBC in 2012. SoFi currently originates more than $1 billion per month in consumer credit and has originated more than $25 billion in loans since commencing operations in late 2012, including student loan refinance loans to early career professionals, mortgage loans and unsecured personal loans. He has been instrumental in SoFi’s asset backed securitization program and has also led numerous transactions involving the sale of loan portfolios to depository institutions. At SoFi, he has built a compliance team from the ground up and was instrumental in establishing a business development function that accounts for approximately 20 percent of loan originations.
James T. Farha
As Immediate Credit Recovery’s Senior Vice President of Business Development and Operations, Phillip oversees the development and administration of ICR’s business outsourcing programs, taking client objectives and goals and successfully executing them with a high degree of efficiency to exceed expectations. Phillip possesses a unique blend and depth of higher education expertise that spans 30+ years of work with high-volume, high balance student loan portfolios and includes the entire student loan life cycle: financial aid office, student loan servicing, guarantor, and account receivables services.
Christiana Thornton became the fourth President and Chief Executive Officer of Granite Edvance (formerly The NHHEAF Network Organizations) in November of 2018, after serving briefly as President and CEO-Elect. She was a member of the Board of Directors of NHHELCO from 2010, including serving on NHHELCO’s Audit Committee, until her appointment as President and CEO-Elect in October 2018.
Ron Gambill
