Meet the Scientific Learning Board of Directors
Robert C. Bowen
Chairman of the Board
Mr. Bowen is currently the Chairman of the Board. He was recently the Chief Executive Officer from 2002 - 2008 and from 2012 - 2018. Mr. Bowen was also the Executive Chairman in 2009 and Chairman in 2010. Mr. Bowen has more than four decades of career success in building market leadership and shareholder value in the education market. In his last assignment as president of NCS Education Software and Services, he built this K-12 business into the market leader of enterprise software solutions with a 40 percent market share. NCS was sold to Pearson PLC in the fall of 2000.
Mr. Bowen has also held senior executive positions with other leading education companies including seventeen years with McGraw-Hill. He last served as executive vice president of McGraw-Hill's Education and Training group, which included seven divisions with total revenues of approximately $350 million. Early in his career, Mr. Bowen was a high school math teacher, a coach, and a school district administrator. Mr. Bowen received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.
Jeffrey D. Thomas
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Jeffrey D. Thomas joined us as co-CEO in March 2018 and is the CEO as of August 1, 2018. He joined us as a director in November 2008. From February 2002 until February 2013, Mr. Thomas served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Ambassadors Group, Inc., an educational travel company that organizes and promotes international and domestic educational travel and sports programs for youth, athletes and professionals. From November 2001 through February 2013, Mr. Thomas served as a member of the board of directors of Ambassadors Group, Inc., and Mr. Thomas served in executive positions of increasing responsibility at Ambassadors Group and its predecessors starting in 1995, including as President and Chief Executive Officer of Ambassador Programs, Inc. from 1996 to 2002; President of Ambassadors Education Group, Inc. from 1997 to 2002; and Chief Financial Officer to Ambassadors International from 1995 to 2002. Mr. Thomas holds a BA from Dartmouth College.
Edward V. Blanchard, Jr.
Director
Edward Vermont Blanchard, Jr. joined us as a director in November 2002. Mr. Blanchard is presently Manager of OBX Hospitality LLC, which purchases distressed hotel properties and then rehabilitates and manages the properties. From June 2009 to April 2011, Mr. Blanchard was a Managing Director at Aon Benfield Securities, Inc., the capital markets and strategic advisory investment banking subsidiary of Aon Corporation. From December 2004 through September 2008, Mr. Blanchard was a Senior Advisor to Irving Place Capital (formerly known as Bear Stearns Merchant Banking), a private equity investment firm. From 1986 through 1999, Mr. Blanchard worked in investment banking for Merrill Lynch & Co., including from 1990 through 1999 as a Managing Director specializing in mergers and acquisitions for financial institutions.
Mr. Blanchard is President of the Board of Trustees of the American Folk Art Museum. He holds a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Michael A. Moses, Ed.D
Director; Vice Chairman of Board
Michael A. Moses joined us as a member and Vice Chairman of the board in July 2007. Dr. Moses has been an educator for over 30 years. He currently serves as a senior advisor to the Center for the Reform of School Systems, a nonprofit organization focusing on the promotion of urban school reform.
From November 2004 until July 2006, Dr. Moses served as Vice Chairman of the board at Higher Ed Holdings, the owner of the American College of Education. Dr. Moses served as the general superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District from 2001 through 2004. From 1999 through 2001, he served as the deputy chancellor for System Operations for the Texas Tech University system. Dr. Moses was the Commissioner of Education for the State of Texas from 1995 through 1999. Prior to that service, Dr. Moses was the superintendent of three Texas school districts, including Lubbock, LaMarque and Tatum and served as a teacher and school administrator in the Duncanville and Garland independent school districts.
Dr. Moses holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Stephen F. Austin State University and a Doctor of Education degree from Texas A&M University - Commerce. Dr. Moses is a member of the board of directors of Southwest Securities Services Group, a holding company whose subsidiaries provide financial and investment services, and previously served as a member of the Board of the Trammell Crow Company. He serves as special advisor and consultant to several corporations and entities that interface with elementary, secondary and higher education.
Paula Tallal, Ph.D.
Director
Paula A. Tallal is one of our founders, and a world-recognized authority on language-learning disabilities. She has served on our Board since inception. A cognitive neuroscientist and a board-certified clinical psychologist, Dr. Tallal is a founder and co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. In 2001, Dr. Tallal was named a Board of Governors Professor in Neuroscience. She is an active participant in many scientific advisory boards and government committees for both developmental language disorders and learning disabilities.
Dr. Tallal has over 25 years experience managing multi-site, multi-disciplinary, federally funded contracts and grants that have resulted in over 150 publications as well as national and international honors. She received a bachelor's degree in art history from New York University and a doctorate from Cambridge University in Experimental Psychology, with additional research training at Johns Hopkins University.
Rodman W. Moorhead III
Director
Rodman Moorhead previously served on Scientific Learning's board of directors from June 1998 to May 2011. In his previous tenure, he served as Lead Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee. In returning he will resume his role as Chair of the Compensation Committee and serve as a member of the board's audit committee as well.
A former managing director at Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm, Mr. Moorhead's distinguished career includes director and trustee positions for a wide variety of corporations such as Coventry Health Care and My Language 360. Mr. Moorhead is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Taft School, a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, Chairman of Stroud Water Research Center, trustee of the Brandywine Conservancy, and trustee of Jackson Hole Land Trust.
Mr. Moorhead holds a B.A. in economics from Harvard University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He is also a member of Harvard's Medical School Board of Fellows.
