Dr. Ben Williams to Become NAPE’s Next CEO

At the National Summit for Educational Equity, the NAPE Education Foundation Board and the NAPE Executive Committee, named Dr. Ben Williams to be NAPE’s next Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Williams will replace Mimi Lufkin, who has served as NAPE’s CEO since 1995, on September 1, 2018. In this role, he will take NAPE through its next strategic planning phase and work with the leadership of the Foundation and the membership organization to set direction for the organization’s growth into the future.

Ben Williams, PhD, is currently NAPE’s Vice President of Programs. He oversees all program development and implementation, including professional development/learning, research and evaluation, and technical assistance. He is also principal investigator (PI) for two NSF-funded projects, which facilitate the training and technical assistance of state and local educators and leaders in implementing research- and evidence-based strategies to increase the participation, persistence, and program completion of underrepresented students, based on gender, race and ethnicity, and special populations, in CTE and STEM. Prior to joining NAPE, Dr. Williams spent 12 years at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio, where he coordinated the secondary career-technical recruitment process, worked as an academic advising administrator, and oversaw the Carl D. Perkins Grant.

Dr. Williams is a national expert on equity in CTE, and a Mentor Instructor in NAPE’s two Comprehensive Educational Equity Programs: The Program Improvement Process for Equity (PIPE™) and Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student™ (Micromessaging). In 2015, he co-authored the NAPE Explore Nontraditional Careers toolkit, which provides tools and activities for educators and counselors to more effectively recruit and retain students in nontraditional career preparation programs. In 2016, he helped to develop the Ohio Career Guidebooks to broaden participation in STEM through CTE, and he has been a regular contributor to ACTE Techniques Magazine on the impact of NAPE’s work.

Dr. Williams began his work with NAPE as a volunteer leader with the NSF-funded STEM Equity Pipeline Project in 2009; he later became a consultant with NAPE and was instrumental in the development and implementation of the latest iteration of PIPE, and he came on board full-time with NAPE in 2015. He is deeply passionate about our work and excited to work with the NAPE membership and colleagues throughout the country dedicated and committed to increasing student access, educational equity, and ultimately workforce diversity.

Dr. Williams earned his Bachelor of Arts in psychology and philosophy from Wheaton College, Massachusetts, and his Master of Arts in student affairs administration and higher education and his Ph.D. in educational policy and leadership from The Ohio State University.