We’ve had some staffing changes in the Exam Directorate. We’re grateful to our departing members for their service and excited to welcome new talent to the team.
Thank you to our departing directors:
- Don Blake is stepping down as Managing Exam Director but will remain on the team as an Exam Director. Thank you, Don, for your dedicated service in the managing role.
- We also extend our sincere thanks to Diego Setti, Andy Hejl, and Jay Hersh for their contributions as directors.
Promotions & New Directors:
- Brad Darnell and James Lallande have been promoted from Associate to Exam Directors.
- A warm welcome to our new Associate Exam Directors: Kathy Yan Li, Nathan Keffer, David Gilks, Tom Hayosh, and Jeff Muse.
The team moving forward:
- Managing Exam Director: Greg Toothaker
- Exam Directors: Mike Bury, Phil Farrell, Thomaz Pupo, Mike Lentz (focused on online entry exams), and Don Blake
- Associate Exam Directors: John Haven and Carolina Perez
- Regional Liaison: Diego Setti (for the Latin American region)
- Assistant Exam Directors: Fred Hirsch and Scott Joines
Looking Ahead: Grading Initiatives
The Exam Directorate is focused on a few key projects for the remainder of the year. Our top priority is to onboard our new staff members and integrate them into our processes.
We are also re-engaging with our native language grading initiative. This is a vital effort to support the significant number of exams submitted in Spanish. Over the last three years, exams from the Latin American region have made up 17-18% of our total volume.
How You Can Help: A Call for Graders
While we have been working hard to close exams—we’ve completed 88 exam sets so far this year—the grading team is still our biggest bottleneck.
We currently have 28 exam sets with teams and 18 exam sets ready to be graded and need your help.
If you are an active grader, please consider signing up for a new set. If you’re a former grader who would like to get back into it, we welcome you back! Finally, if you’re a National or higher-ranking judge, you are already qualified to be a grader. We would be thrilled to have you join our team and help us reduce the backlog.
Ready to sign up? Click here: [Grader Sign-up Link]