Speakers

Brendan Marsello is Director of Member Support Services for LERN and oversees technical support and data analysis for the organization.

Greg Marsello is LERN’s Vice President for Organizational Development and a national authority on reengineering management and running programs. Marsello is a co-founder of LERN and was chair of the Board of Directors for 12 years. With more than 20 years in the business, he has authored publications, gives frequent seminars and does consulting on marketing, management and program development.

For 35 years, Marsello served as President of the Learning Connection, an independent, community based learning organization which he founded in 1980. During his tenure as president of the Learning Connection, that organization became the foremost program of its type in the United Stated and not only modeled best practice in lifelong learning but contributed to the creation of LERN’s benchmarks for successful lifelong learning and continuing education practice.

William A. Draves, CAE,  is President of LERN, the largest association for lifelong learning and continuing education in the world. Draves is a popular speaker in great demand, and has given seminars in 48 states and in Germany, England, Canada, Russia, Japan and Australia and has given a TED talk on his book, co-authored with Julie Coates, NineShift: Life Work and Education in the 21stCentury. He is a pioneer in the development of  online education, both delivery and pedagogy, and has provided training for thousands of faculty at both the K-12 and post-secondary levels.

He has authored multiple books, including Advanced Teaching Online, How to Teach Adults, and with co-author Julie Coates A Pedagogy for the 21st Century, in addition to NineShift. Draves and Coates are currently preparing to publish Smart Boys, Bad Grades: Gender Equity in Education. Draves’s books on learning and education have been translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.

He is a past president of the coalition of lifelong learning organizations.

Julie Coates is LERN’s Vice President for Membership Services and a leading  authority on the demographics of lifelong learning. She is a popular presenter on generational learning and communication as well as trends in lifelong Learning. In addition to presenting and consulting in the United States, she has presented in Russia, Mexico, Canada, Germany, England, and Australia. Her published books include the ground-breaking Generational Learning Styles, which has been published in English, Spanish and Russian.

She is also co-author with William Draves of NineShift: Life, Work and Education in the 21st Century and A Pedagogy for the Twenty-First Century. Her upcoming book with co-Author William Draves is Smart Boys, Bad Grades. Coates has been interviewed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and Psychology Today among other media.