Executive Director
Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise

301-405-3988
kross@umd.edu

In April 2001, after nearly eight years of public service at the national level, Kim Ross was selected as Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise in School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland. In this role, she develops and manages the newly created Center and its activities, including research, graduate courses, executive education and forums that focus on the changing roles and relationships among the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The Center also encourages effective cross-sector collaborations and works to improve the capacity of all three sectors to meet public needs.

Previously, Ms. Ross served in a variety of roles with the White House Domestic Policy Office, the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Education -- in the Office of Intergovernmental and Interagency Affairs and the Division of Community Services and Partnerships.

In her most recent assignment as Director of the Information Resource Center at the U.S. Department of Education, Ms. Ross created an opportunity to improve government services and support local education reform efforts by building her organization into a premiere public outreach and information service -- linking families, schools, businesses and community organizations to education information and to each other. Her service center played a key role in the After School Alliance, the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education, the America Reads Challenge and other public-private partnerships. Ms. Ross also provided leadership and expertise for a variety of other government reinvention projects that designed and established new public service offerings through cross-sector collaborations. She received four of the prestigious Hammer Awards (given by the National Partnership for Reinventing Government) for her successes in improving customer and information services, expanding public engagement, empowering employees to improve services, and creating effective public-private partnerships.

Prior to moving to the nation's capital, Ms. Ross focused on her environmental interests through research and writing for Oregon's Department of Land Conservation and Development, teaching natural resources in Oregon's Outdoor School, and providing ecological and geographical information in Yellowstone National Park.

Ms. Ross holds a M.P.P. in Environmental Policy from the Maryland School of Public Affairs and a B.A. in Business Administration from Rhodes College.