Chief Executive Officer

An attorney, Tom Luce received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Southern Methodist University and has been honored with the SMU Law School and University Distinguished Alumni Awards. He was a founding partner and managing partner of the law firm of Hughes & Luce, LLP until his retirement from the firm in 1997.

Chief Program Officer

John Winn has a distinguished career in education policy and a lifelong commitment to quality education for all students. An educator for 35 years, he began his career as an elementary and middle school teacher. He joined the Florida Department of Education in 1984 and served in several responsible positions including Deputy Commissioner and Chief of Staff before being appointed to Commissioner of Education in August 2004. In February 2007 he retired from Commissioner of Education. He joined the National Mathematics and Science Initiative in March 2007 as the Chief Program Officer for AP* and pre-AP courses.

Chief Operating Officer

Clay Mulford joined NMSI during its initial formation, assisting Tom Luce in the establishment of its operations and all aspects of its activities.  He is responsible for the daily oversight of the organization.  A corporate and securities lawyer prior to joining NMSI, he was a partner with Jones Day and, earlier, with Hughes & Luce, where he was a member of that firm’s executive committee.  In his law practice he served as lead counsel in numerous high-profile mergers and public offerings and on several national ABA Committees.   

Clay has served as a resident lecturer at Harvard University and has also served as a guest lecturer at Oxford University, University of Virginia, Harvard College, University of Virginia School of Law, Princeton University, the British American Project of SAIS, Northeastern University, UCLA and Austin College. He has also been a featured speaker for the Annenberg Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the Carnegie Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the 20th Century Fund. 

Chief Financial Officer

Patty Pickard is the Chief Financial Officer of NMSI and a Certified Public Accountant. During her career she has held senior level financial and management positions in the finance, real estate development, oil and gas, and insurance industries. She served as CFO and COO of several multi-million dollar companies, as Senior Vice President of a multi-billion dollar public ally traded company and as a senior advisor and consultant in mergers of private and public companies.

Chief of Staff

BJ Goergen is the Chief of Staff at the National Math and Science Initiative, an innovative philanthropic organization focused on results. NMSI's mission is to dramatically improve math and science education by taking effective programs to scale nationwide. NMSI has granted $125 million to scale two successful programs in six states and at 13 universities. In their first year of operations, NMSI's partners have trained 1,000 teachers and dramatically increased student enrollment in courses that prepare students for college, especially among female and minority students.

Communications Director

Prior to joining NMSI, Rena Pederson was Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications for the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., serving as a senior speechwriter and communications manager. As part of those duties, Ms. Pederson also served on the editorial board of the Counter Terrorism Communications Center at the Department of State, organized an international media conference on attacks on the press, prepared Congressional testimony for Under Secretary Karen Hughes, and helped create the America Is book for distribution overseas.

She previously served as Vice President and Editorial Page Editor at The Dallas Morning News, supervising the staff and content of the opinion pages for 16 years.

Director of Public Development

Ms. Hirsch joined NMSI after practicing law for three years at Hughes & Luce (now K&L Gates) as a litigation and labor and employment attorney.  In her capacity as an associate attorney, Ms. Hirsch participated in trials and arbitration, conducted witness depositions and interviews, and drafted numerous trial and pre-trial briefings.  Her experiences honed her analytical and writing skills, which have served her well in her role at NMSI as she writes, reviews, and responds to applications for federal funding, including grants issued under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Ms. Hirsch also serves as the liaison regarding federal funding issues with the entities implementing NMSI-managed programs and other education reform stakeholders.

National AP Training and Incentives Program Director

Gregg Fleisher is the National AP* Training and Incentives Program Director of NMSI. Gregg started his career as an auditor and actuary with Coopers & Lybrand but later decided to make a major career change to pursue his passion. In 1986, he began teaching math to high school students in the Dallas ISD. While teaching, he had one of the highest percentages of students pass the Advanced Placement Program calculus exam/per school enrollment of any public high school in the country. In 1993, Gregg was awarded the Advanced Placement Special Recognition Award by the Southwest Region of the College Board. In 1995, he became the lead math teacher in the new AP Incentive Program.

During his five years as the lead math teacher, he had a strong record in helping minority students excel in AP courses. As much as 3.3 percent of the country’s minorities who passed AP Math Exams were from Gregg’s schools.

Director of Standards and Quality

René has taught AP* Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics. She pioneered the AP Chemistry Program at Southlake Carroll High School. She was a member of the AP Chemistry Test Development Committee from 1999-2001-the committee which writes the AP Chemistry Exam. Her syllabus is currently published in the AP Teacher's Guide and she authored the chapter on using technology in the AP Chemistry classroom.

Regional Director

Dale Fleury is the NMSI Regional Director responsible for the administration and implementation of Advanced Placement* Incentive Program grant awards to states.

Most recently, he was Program Director for Advanced Placement Strategies Incorporated, the organization that served as a model for the NMSI grant program. His responsibilities included the implementation, administration, and management of Advanced Placement Incentive Programs in English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Music Theory.

Prior to that, Dale spent 23 years teaching in Wisconsin and Texas. During that time he taught several AP courses and earned state and national recognition for his work in Vertical Teaming and Pre-AP/AP alignment in grades 6-12.

Director of Mathematics Programs

Lin McMullin was a high school mathematics teacher, consultant and author before coming to NMSI. Most of his 34 years in the classroom were spent in upstate New York, where he taught all levels of high school mathematics including Advanced Placement Calculus AB and BC. He served for 15 years as a reader or table leader for the AP calculus exams. He led workshops and institutes for teachers in the United States and abroad for almost 20 years. He is the author or co-author of several books. His book for AP teachers, Teaching AP Calculus, has been well received and is now in its second edition.

Since retiring from teaching, he worked on several projects including serving on the original calculus authoring team for Agile Mind’s online Calculus and Algebra 1 programs.  He is the author of the AP calculus Teacher’s Resource Guide for the current edition of Calculus by Larson, Hostetler and Edwards (8th edition) and the editor/developer of the AP Tool Kit for the new text Calculus by Jon Rogawski.

Director of English Programs

Pat Sherbert brings a wide range of teaching experience to her new role as the Director of English Programs at NMSI.  Most recently she served as a curriculum specialist for Tulsa Public Schools, where she was responsible for the content, review and training of all secondary required courses. She previously served as Advanced Placement Coordinator for Broken Arrow Public Schools and has been a consultant for The College Board Advanced Placement program since 1990.  She also served as an Educational Testing Services consultant for Advanced Placement from 1991-2008 and has helped Advanced Placement Strategies with its "Laying the Foundations" training since 2000. 

Director of Science Programs

Veteran educator Carol Leibl has joined NMSI as Director of Science Programs.  Carol has 27 years of teaching experience, most of it spent at James Madison High School in San Antonio, Texas.  Her educational career has included many awards, including the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Award, Texas Biology Teacher of the Year, Siemens Award for Excellence in Teaching, and NABT Teacher of the Year for Texas. 

She has been a College Board consultant since 1985 and has been a reader for the AP Biology Exam.  In this capacity, Carol has led numerous summer institutes as well as one and two-day workshops.In addition, Carol founded and directed the James Madison Technology Institute and the UTSA Advanced Placement Institute.