Ron is currently the Director of Distance Learning at William Paterson University where he directs the distance learning activities. He can be reached at chalmersr@wpunj.edu or 973-720-3024. Until it was disbanded in December, 2001, Ron was Vice President of Academic Operations for NYUonline, a company formed by New York University to take the university's content online and offer it to NYU students and the corporate market.

In 1999, Ron was the program director for Homeroom.com, a major new educational website launched by The Princeton Review designed to help students perform better on state assessment tests while also helping them do better in school.

From 1995 - 1998, Ron was responsible for all Education, Family and Computing content on Prodigy Internet. This included educational learning opportunities for over 1 million member households as well as the K-12 education market segment. He also developed online communities with focuses like Homeschooling, Distance Learning, Adoption, Divorce, Stepfamilies and Early Childhood Learning. Ron has also created and launched teen entertainment areas for the 10 to 18 year old online audiences.

Responsibilities included finding and acquiring content, negotiating revenue generating business arrangements and managing the actual creation of content on the Prodigy service. Major efforts also centered on creation and maintenance of online Chat, Newsgroups and Bulletin Board Areas. In addition to Prodigy proprietary content, Ron built educational, home and family connections to World Wide Web sites appropriate for Prodigy members.

In January, 1998 Ron launched the Prodigy Learning Center, a unique way to learn online. Using a proprietary software player, learning modules are presented using full animation and streaming audio. Content included over 40 courses including Word, Excel 95, PowerPoint, Schedule+, Front Page, Photoshop, Quicken 98, Windows 98, WordPerfect, ACT! 3.0 and Lotus Notes. The courses include both pre and post tests so the learner can assess how well he/she has absorbed the material.

In April 1996, in association with America Tomorrow, Ron launched a major Education area on Prodigy for parents and professional educators. The area included significant original content built exclusively for Prodigy as well as an aggregation of appropriate content on the World Wide Web. The area received over 100,000 visits each month.

In 1990, as Vice President of Business Development at Optical Data Corporation, Ron was a key part of a seminal event in the history of multimedia and technology in education. During the 1990 elementary science textbook adoption in Texas, the State Department of Education placed Optical Data's laser videodisc series, Windows on Science, on the approved textbook list. Windows on Science was purchased by over 50% of the 1,200 school districts in the state. Today, multimedia products (CD-ROM, laser videodisc and Internet) are part of every educational publisher's offerings to the K-12 marketplace.

On a personal note, in March, 1997, Ron enrolled in a Masters program at Walden University. The degree is in Educational Change and Technology Innovation. Walden is a cyber university. All courses in this program are taken online. Professors and students interact online. Assignments are submitted online. Research is done online. The mission of this masters program is to create "agents for change" in the school systems who will act as catalysts to bring schools into a new paradigm of learning that effectively utilizes all the technology resources at our disposal.



GENERAL BACKGROUND - RAC

1. Product Management Experience
   • Uncover/Evaluate high quality content
   • Create business case models for content acquisition - low cost/high margin
   • Negotiate business deals with content providers
   • Manage content/communications up on the Prodigy service (Project Schedule/Technical)
   
   
2. Product Development Experience
   • Design
   • Writing
   • Authoring
     
   • Online
   • CD-ROM
   • Diskette
   
   
3. Sales & Marketing Experience
   • Distribution Channels
   • Marketing Strategies
   • "Front Line" Sales Management
     • Home Education
     • K-12 Segment
   
   
4. Management Skills
   • managed line organizations - sales, development
   • tactical and strategic planning
   • training/personnel development
   • effective interpersonal skills
   • effective communicator
   • effective organizer
   
   
5. Teaching Experience
   • "Guest" Professor, Graduate School of Education at Johns Hopkins University
   • Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Education at Long Island University
   • Teacher, St. Joseph's College, New York City
   • Numerous workshops and seminars for K-12 educators on technology in the classroom
   • Various teaching assignments with the IBM Corporation