Born on April 18, 1949, Dann-Messier and her two brothers were raised by their Jewish parents, Frank Dann and Germana Carpi-Dann, who fled Nazi Germany and Italy in the late 1930s and settled in Warwick, Rhode Island. She earned her bachelor’s degree in secondary education from Rhode Island College in 1973. Her graduate studies took place at Rhode Island’s Johnson and Wales University, where she received her Master of Education in 1974 and her doctorate in educational leadership in 2000.

 

Dann-Messier directed two federal TRIO programs, the Rhode Island Educational Opportunity Center (1987-1993) and the Educational Talent Search Program (1991-1993) of the Community College of Rhode Island.

 

In 1993, she was invited to join the Clinton administration’s Education Department as the regional representative for Region I in Boston under then-Secretary of Education Richard Riley.

Three years later, she left Washington to work at the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University.

 

Dann-Messier became president of Dorcas Place, an Adult and Family Learning Center in Providence, RI, in 1999, where she remained until being appointed by President Barack Obama to run the Office of Vocational and Adult Education.

 

Her professional affiliations include serving as a member of the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education and chairing the Academic and Student Affairs Committee for the board.

 

Dann-Messier’s husband, Daniel Messier, is a retired teacher.

 

Brenda Dann-Messier (WhoRunsGov.com)

R.I. Education Official to Give Nation’s Adult Learners Stronger Voice (by Jennifer D. Jordan, Providence Journal)

TTroy R. Justesen, was nominated for the position of Assistant Secretary for Vocational and Adult Education by President George W. Bush in May 2006, and confirmed by the Senate in July 2006. He served until Bush left office January 20, 2009. Justesen was born in Orangeville, Utah, and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in education in 1989 at Utah State University, in Logan. He began work at the University’s Affiliated Program, and then held an appointed position in the Utah State government, followed by a 1991 internship in Washington D.C. After that, he returned to his alma mater to receive a Master’s degree in Special Education in 1994. Then he worked as a Civil Rights investigator and enforcer for the U.S. Department of Justice until September, 2000, when he began the job of an Education Policy Analyst in the Office of Special Education Programs, a unit of the Department of Education’s Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). In 2001, he completed his Doctorate in Higher Education at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, and next went to work at the White House’s Domestic Policy Council as Associate Director for Domestic Policy, where he helped implement the president’s New Freedom Initiative to improve educational opportunities and employment prospects for Americans with disabilities, and also served as Associate Director for Native American policy issues. In 2003 he returned to the Department of Education as the Deputy Commissioner of the Rehabilitative Services Administration, one of three units within OSERS. At the same time he also served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Osers. For 11 months in 2004, while the division awaited confirmation of a new Assistant Secretary, he was delegated the authority to perform the functions of that position, and in March 2005 he took on the added responsibility of Acting Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Two months later he was also named Acting Director of the Office of Special Education Programs. In June 2005, he officially took the post of Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSERS, where he remained until he came to OVAE. His identical twin brother, Tracy, is the Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U.S. Department of Education. Troy Justesen donated $324 to the Republican National Committee in 2004.