Colleen B. Mendel, MS, MBA, Executive Director, T/TAS
colleen.mendel@wku.edu

As Executive Director of T/TAS, Colleen B. Mendel oversees the Head Start and Human Services Consulting Group; WKU Child Care Consortium Head Start, Early Head Start, and child care programs serving about 225 children; a ten county Child Care Resource and Referral Agency; and the department's other contracts and projects. Ms. Mendel holds a Master's in Business Administration (MBA), Master's degrees in Higher Education (MA) and Spanish (MS), and Duke University 's certificate in Non-Profit Management. Prior to coming to T/TAS, Ms. Mendel was on the faculty in the Department of Foreign Languages at Iowa State University.

Her training and consulting interests include program governance, wage comparability and salary administration, strategic planning, and human resources, especially wage and hour, performance appraisal, employee selection and succession planning. Recent foci have also included risk management for Head Start/Early Head Start programs and their grantee and delegate agencies and the fiduciary responsibilities of their Boards of Directors.

Ms. Mendel was privileged to serve both the National Head Start Association and National Community Action Partnership in the development of their quality initiatives, designing quality standards and strategies for assessment.

Ms. Mendel is chosen often by the Office of Head Start (OHS) to present sessions for national audiences. She trained Head Start Fiscal Reviewers on Non-Federal Share and Employee Compensation in February, 2004, and, in conjunction with her colleague Marce Verzaro-O'Brien, took the lead in designing and presenting training for nearly 800 Program Design and Management Head Start PRISM Reviewers in August, 2004. Colleen presented the intermediate track on Financial Management at the Head Start and Early Head Start Director's Orientation in November, 2005, and designed materials and conducted training for OHS's first Financial Pre-Institute in December, 2006.