10 QUESTIONS WITH
Arizona Literacy Director
1. You grew up in Arizona and now serve as the state’s literacy director. Talk about that journey. I grew up in Mesa, graduated from Westwood High, went to Brown University in Rhode Island and majored in literature in society. After Brown, I was drawn to the nonprofit sector and became the executive director for Literacy Network of Greater Los Angeles. Then I ran an education foundation and ultimately a statewide early literacy organization called Bring Me a Book. That’s where I began to see that we really needed to all be rowing in the same direction. When I talked with
22 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | JULY 2018
my staff in San Diego, Los Angeles or Sacramento, what I kept hearing was that we were all doing our best, but we weren’t very collaborative. In 2012, Arizona was looking for a state literacy director to coordinate literacy efforts. I was intrigued by the idea of bringing the learning I had gained over the years back to Arizona, so I threw my hat in the ring and was lucky to get selected.
2. Tell us about the work Read On Arizona is doing. Read On Arizona is a statewide publicprivate partnership of agencies, philanthropic