Engineers Helping Educators™ is the common theme for Rich Rosen as he collaborates with others to improve and transform systems of education. Most recently he held a Visiting Fellows position with Johns Hopkins University School of Education in 2012, and is now pursuing doctoral studies at JHU in the area of education partnerships with industry. Rich also works with the Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM as a Senior Practice Leader. Rich is founder of Indigo Strategies, established with the mission of mobilizing practicing engineers to use their systems analysis and design skills to help solve education problems in their local community. Indigo Strategies was created to give back, through pro-bono support to key causes and distribution of earnings to non-profit groups dedicated to regional education impact.

Rich is an invited speaker on education system transformation and leadership practices for education public/private partnerships. He is frequently called on to help facilitate regional, state, and national conversations about transformation and organize new initiatives. Rich is currently collaborating on a range of projects, including: support to the Ohio Board of Regents in designing and implementing of Ohio Higher Ed Means Jobs – a process to systematically connect Ohio’s institutions and employers to create thousands of paid, credit-bearing student internships in Ohio over the next two years; assisting an island school district in its transformation to an applied learning laboratory serving school districts across its state; and helping to organize a system for national philanthropic groups to align their individual efforts in STEM education funding to achieve collective impact. His work with Johns Hopkins University focuses on developing meaningful partnership practices between research institutions, business, and K-12.

Rich’s lifetime of volunteering began after college as an adult literacy tutor and food bank volunteer. He has now served on more than 30 boards of directors to date ranging from arts to venture capital to economic development. His current board service includes I Know I Can (college access and counseling for students in Columbus City Schools) and PAST Foundation (ethnographic studies and teacher professional development). He education board experience spans a PK-20 spectrum, including early childhood, K-12 independent and public school, and post-secondary institutions. Rich was appointed by the Governor of Ohio in 2009 as a Trustee with Columbus State Community College, where he serves as Chair of one of Ohio’s largest post-secondary institutions with enrollment of over 30,000 students.

Rich is a lifetime member (#143) of the National Society of Black Engineers, where he is an advisor to its Executive Director. Rich’s work with NSBE included expanding the pilot program SEEK (Summer Engineering Experience for Kids) to more than six cities across the United States connecting college engineering students with 3rd-6th grade students, serving more than 15,000 kids, making it one of the largest minority-serving engineering programs in the country. Rich was recognized by NSBE with its Achievement Award in at their 2012 National Convention. Now part of the Clinton Global Initiative, Rich is helping NSBE to significantly expand access to SEEK.

Rich received The Ohio State University Distinguished Service Award in 2010, and he was also voted into the Distinguished Alumni roster by its College of Engineering. Rich is currently Advisory Board Chair for OSU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. He was a recipient of Central Ohio’s Helping Hands Award for community leadership, and also received the BioScience Leadership Award in 2006 for his contributions as Chairman of BioOhio, Ohio’s biomedical industry economic development group.

Prior to his current activities with TIES and Johns Hopkins University, Rich enjoyed a 30-year career at Battelle Memorial Institute. His experiences ranged from medical device project engineer to general manager and corporate executive. Rich reenergized Battelle’s education and philanthropy activities and established their focus on STEM education systemic change. He is a founder of the Metro Early College High School, and the founding Executive Director of the Ohio STEM Learning Network, an architecture demonstrating that schools and districts could work across their geo-political borders to achieve an impact well beyond their own walls. The design is now the basis for statewide STEM networks in more than a dozen states.