Board of Directors
Rich Teerlink, Chairman of the Board, is the retired chairman of Harley-Davidson. During his 18 years with Harley he served as chief financial officer, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board. He was appointed to the board of directors in 1982 and was part of the leadership team that led the revitalization of this American icon. In 1986, he helped guide the company back to public ownership and subsequently led the successful cultural transformation effort. This effort was based on the premise that "People are an organization's only sustainable competitive advantage". The process to being this premise into reality is described in the book he is co-author, with Lee Ozley, of More Than A Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey of Harley-Davidson. After graduation from Bradley University in 1960, Teerlink had the benefit of working at large and small, public and private companies at both the corporate and divisional levels in line and staff assignments. During that time he held key executive positions at Herman Miller, RTE Corporation, Union Special Corporation, and MGD Graphic Systems. He serves on the board of directors of Johnson Controls Incorporated and Snap-On Incorporated. He is also an active board member and participant in many privately held businesses and community organizations. In 2002, Teerlink was inducted into both the National and Wisconsin Business Hall of Fame. In addition he has been honored by many other organizations including the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Harvard Business School Alumni Club of Wisconsin, Association for Corporate Growth, and the Sales and Marketing Executives, International.
Dr. Donald Hooper, Board Member, has over 37 years of experience in public education, serving 33 years as an educator, instructional leader, and district administrator -- serving 25 years as superintendent in five school districts ranging in size from 110 students to 60,000 students. He also has experience working with boards of education to formulate school district policy, develop and implement strategic plans, and oversee day-to-day school district administration and operations. Dr. Hooper was named as Texas Superintendent of the Year in 1995 and named as educator of the Month by Texas School Business Magazine. He was the 2001-02 president of the American Association of School Administrators. He has served as an adjunct professor for the Department of School Administration/Supervision in the University of Houston System, The University of North Texas, and The University of Texas at Austin where he taught courses in Instructional Leadership, Instructional Supervision, Curriculum and Administration of Programs, The Superintendency, School Finance and Public Relations and Community Affairs.
He is co-author of the book Public Relations for School Leaders, and Leadership Defined, has been featured in a number of journals and has been published in state and national journals. He also has spoken internationally to the British Society of Education Officers at Cambridge University, the Canadian Association of School Administrators, and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. In addition to having served as a superintendent in one of the fastest growing school districts in Texas, Dr. Hooper led the district to a "Recognized Rating" from the Texas Education Agency. He has significant experience working with boards of education to formulate school district policy, develop and implement strategic plans, and oversee day-to-day school district administration and operations.
Kevin Custer, Chief Operations Officer, has over 19 years of experience in technology and telecommunications. Kevin was a key executive involved in the initial public offering of Infonautics and led the corporate strategy for the school and library market for Electric Library, the Internet's leading online library service. He was president and CEO of Brainium Technologies where he orchestrated the exchange of Brainium for controlling interest of NTS Computer Systems where he also was CEO. Through Custer's leadership, Brainium forged revenue-producing partnerships with over 30 companies, including Sun Microsystems, AT&T, and Lightspan. Custer received a bachelor's of science in computer information science and a bachelor's of science in marketing from the University of Northern Colorado. He has served as the chairman of both the e-business and the education section of the Software and Information Industry Association and has been a guest speaker at COMDEX Asia, and is on the Board of Directors for the Denver Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth. He has also authored works on e-commerce, online marketing, Internet business models and electronic software delivery.
