§01 · Position
Innovation programs inside a public school district. Implementation systems for other leaders. Product advisory for the companies building this market.
Director of Innovation & Strategic Partnerships, South Fayette Township School District — a nationally recognized K–12 district outside Pittsburgh. Founder of The IMPACT System and The Crucible.
Pittsburgh · 2026
§02 · What I Build
Half-day workshops to multi-month district engagements
A proven implementation system for K–12 and higher ed leaders ready to move from scattered initiatives to strategic, measurable transformation. Six phases, field-tested tools, and an innovation readiness assessment — so your ideas survive the pilot phase and become how your organization actually operates.
An 8-week peer cohort for 8–12 cross-sector leaders
You're sitting on decisions you can't talk about honestly — not with your boss, not with your team, not with anyone who has a stake in the outcome. The Crucible Peer Leadership Accelerator is 8 weeks where cross-sector leaders do real work on real challenges — and leave with clarity, not just advice.
Project-based or retainer · Single sessions to ongoing engagements
Companies building for schools hire consultants who used to work in them. I still do. I advise on product ideation, design, and go-to-market across edtech, curriculum, and STEM — starting with the question most teams skip: is this something schools actually need? You'll leave knowing whether to build it, how to position it, and what will get it adopted.
You already know the idea isn't the hard part. The hard part is making it survive the organization — the politics, the priorities, the turnover, and the slow drift back to how things were. That's the work. And the students sitting in these systems right now can't wait for the next strategic plan.
§03 · Built Inside a District
Programs and partnerships I've led as Director of Innovation at South Fayette Township School District. Built alongside teachers, students, and partners — not for them.
K–12 hydroponic agriculture and data science pathway built to open STEM careers for neurodivergent learners. Curriculum developed with Stanford/youcubed; container farm with Parkway West CTC.
$491K PAsmart Grant · Stanford Partnership
270-degree immersive reality facility and new career stacks. Building Immersive Worlds course launched 2025 in partnership with CMU's Entertainment Technology Center.
CMU Partnership · Grable Foundation
Three-year program preparing students for CompTIA Security+ certification. One of 11 districts nationally selected by Digital Promise and Paradigm Cyber Ventures.
1 of 11 Districts Nationally
Food trailer outfitted as a mobile classroom and production studio, connecting agriculture, culinary arts, and digital media production.
Moonshot Grant
Educator field trips to Duolingo, Gecko Robotics, Astrobotic, HEBI Robotics, and others — connecting teachers to the world of work their students are entering.
Ongoing Since 2022
Annual conference at South Fayette, now entering Year 3. FFLS 2026 theme: "Built to Connect — Designing School for the AI Era."
Year 3 · October 2026§04 · The Record
§05 · Free Guide
The Foundational Five
Five conditions that determine whether your next initiative becomes how things are done, or a binder nobody opens.
You've watched this happen. An initiative launches with real energy. A pilot works. People are genuinely excited for a semester, maybe a year. Then leadership turns over, or the budget tightens, or three new priorities arrive, and eighteen months later the thing exists on paper and nowhere else.
The usual explanation is that it was the wrong idea, or that it was poorly implemented, or that people resisted change. Sometimes that's true. More often the idea was fine and the implementation was competent, and the innovation still died, because the organization it landed in couldn't hold it.
The Foundational Five are the conditions that determine whether it can. Each one comes with what it looks like when it's present, what it looks like when it's missing, two questions to ask yourself, and the research behind it.
What's inside
One more step
I've sent you a confirmation link. Click it and the guide arrives right away. If it hasn't shown up in a few minutes, look in Promotions or Spam and move it to your inbox.
One suggestion while you're there. Think of the last initiative at your organization that didn't survive. Not the failure everyone agreed was a failure. The one that worked, that people liked, and that quietly isn't happening anymore. Read the five conditions against that specific thing.
§06 · About
I started as an elementary school teacher in the Bay Area, earned a PhD studying how school leaders support problem-based learning, co-founded an edtech startup, managed online learning design at Indiana University, and now run innovation and strategic partnerships for a K–12 district outside Pittsburgh featured by the Teaching Channel and selected for Digital Promise's League of Innovative Schools. Same problem from every angle I could find — what makes learning actually take hold inside an institution and outlast it.
FOLHK · Hong Kong
§07 · Start a conversation
For superintendents and district teams thinking about implementation. For foundations, universities, and partners shaping the field. For companies building for schools.
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