Andrew Gansler, President
Terrence Thomas, Executive Vice President, Marketing Operations
Don Alava, Senior Vice President, Marketing Services
Howard Mandel, Vice President of Sales and Client Development
Tony Huffman, Vice President of Client Relations
C.J. DeSantis, Founder
Andrew Gansler is the President of eLearners.com, the leading web service for connecting learners to online education and other distance learning resources. Mr. Gansler has been instrumental in strategic planning and management, as well as day-to-day operations of eLearners during a period of record growth and expansion. Prior to his role as President, Mr. Gansler served as Chief Operating Officer at eLearners.com. Prior to joining the company full-time, he served as a member of the eLearners Board of Advisors where he provided guidance in strategic, financial, and overall business development and planning.
Mr. Gansler came to eLearners with over 12 years of management consulting experience. As a Senior Manager in Grant Thornton LLP's management consulting practice, Mr. Gansler provided a variety of strategic business, process and technology consulting services to middle-market and growing firms in diverse industries including Real Estate, Manufacturing and Distribution and Financial Services. As a consulting practice leader, he was directly responsible for leading the turnaround of one of Grant Thornton's regional management consulting offices. Previous to this, Mr. Gansler was a Senior Analyst and Senior Management Engineer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey where he provided business and technical consulting for the World Trade Center, Port Authority owned aviation and port facilities and other real estate and economic development projects.
Mr. Gansler obtained his MBA (with distinction) in Finance and Information Systems from New York University's Stern School of Business and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University. He currently resides in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Terrence Thomas is the EVP Marketing Operations at eLearners.com. Mr. Thomas is responsible for forging external publisher partnerships and for developing revenue generation programs for eLearners. Mr. Thomas comes to eLearners.com from Citi Cards, the credit card division of Citigroup, where he was Vice President of Online Acquisitions. Under his two year tenure, Terrence was instrumental in growing Citi Cards' online acquisitions three-fold, and helping the Internet channel to surpass direct mail as Citi Cards leading customer acquisition channel.
Mr. Thomas' Internet career began in 1998 as a class project in business school when he co-founded GI Bill Express.com, an online education service that connected veterans and active duty personnel with post secondary educational institutions. In less than two years, GI Bill Express grew to be the leading GI Bill and veteran scholarship resource on the Internet and was acquired by Military.com in early 2000. While at Military.com, Mr. Thomas built the Careers and Education channels into the largest veteran job board on the Internet and a leading online education lead generation service.
Mr. Thomas is a former Naval Officer where he served on active duty tours at sea on the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) as the Main Propulsion Division Officer and on shore as a Naval ROTC Instructor at Prairie View A&M University.
Mr. Thomas holds an MBA from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and a BA in Economics from California State University, Sacramento.
Don Alava is a veteran marketer highly skilled at consumer lead generation, cultivation, and conversion through online and traditional advertising strategies. His experience includes: Internet, search engine, e-mail, Web site, database, TV, direct, print, outdoor, and radio. In the higher education arena, Mr. Alava implemented innovative ROI-based marketing campaigns for Drexel University’s eLearning programs that resulted in 45 percent increases in student enrollment and garnered industry recognition as his work received gold Annual Admissions Awards, the Webby Award, and USDLA 21st Century Best Practices Award Winner.
Currently, Mr. Alava is Senior Vice President of the Student Prospecting Division of EducationDynamics, LLC, owners of leading consumer Web resources for higher education such as GradSchools.com, eLearners.com, and EarnMyDegree.com. His additional marketing experiences included developing successful direct and interactive campaigns for Fortune 100 clients of Euro RSCG and Avenue A/Razorfish.
Mr. Alava holds an Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University and a B.B.A. from the University of Cincinnati.
As Vice President of Sales and Client Development, Howard's responsibility is to oversee and manage new client acquisitions in addition to assisting in the growth and needs of existing education partners. He brings a unique background and perspective to eLearners having previously been on both sides of the sales environment; as a sales person and VP of Sales for a successful Internet portal and as a client/marketer while a VP/Account Director at several NY advertising agencies. That experience has benefited him in understanding the needs of the companies he's worked with in developing successful results oriented programs and, as a result, ensuing in long-term relationships with his clients. He has a successful track record of serving major business accounts in diverse industries nationwide. In addition to his Internet and Advertising background, Howard also has experience and major accomplishments in the software industry.
Howard's expertise in sales and marketing have led to successful Internet/Online campaigns for companies including Columbia Pictures, US Army, Sony Corp., Ford and General Foods; and traditional campaigns for products and companies including Tic Tac Mints, Toyota, Pioneer Electronics, Marriott Corp. and Waldenbooks. For Tic Tac, he played a key role in the product's U.S. success by his involvement in the repositioning of it as the '1½ calorie mint' that resulted in a skyrocketing market share growth from the #13 mint in the category to #3.
Howard has his MBA from Long Island University and his B.B.A. for CUNY's Baruch College in NY.
Tony Huffman is Vice President of Client Relations at eLearners.com, the leading web service for connecting learners to online schools, and distance learning resources. As head of Client Development, Mr. Huffman is the day-to-day contact for all of eLearners' educational partners, ensuring that eLearners is always responsive to the ever-changing needs of the education market. Since starting at eLearners, Mr. Huffman has personally established relationships with over 70 learning providers for the company. He also has worked with the management team to design, build and implement new business models including the Silver Level Partner Program and eLearners enrollment management technology services.
Mr. Huffman brings a wide range of financial, Internet and relationship management experience to eLearners. Previously Mr. Huffman served as Director of Business Development for Audible.com, a leading provider of spoken audio services for content download and playback on computers, CD or computer-based mobile devices. Mr. Huffman forged technical and marketing partnerships with blue chip companies such as Microsoft, Casio, Compaq, Sony and others, and he designed and oversaw development of the Audible Otis digital audio player-ranked as one of the top digital audio players by Cnet.com for the last two years. Mr. Huffman also worked at National Card Control, Inc., a $26MM company and former subsidiary of Cendant, Inc., where he was responsible for a variety of budget and financial forecasting programs.
Mr. Huffman graduated with a B.B.A. in Accounting from James Madison University.
In 1999, C.J. DeSantis founded eLearners.com with a vision of bringing together people seeking quality online education and leading organizations that offer such programs. With an extensive background in educational technology, Mr. DeSantis used his broad knowledge and in-depth understanding of this growing field to create a Web site that would serve as a meeting point for learners and educational organizations offering online programs. Mr. DeSantis helped pioneer "performance-based" marketing in the online education space, reducing the risks for learning providers to increase advertising and promotion. Under Mr. DeSantis' direction, eLearners.com became the leading education directory and a profitable online enterprise.
Mr. DeSantis possesses a rare combination of experiences as an online learner, educational technology specialist and manager. Over the past several years C.J. has spoken at educational conferences and seminars conducted by Harris-Nesbitt and the Sloan Consortium. He is a member of the Gerson Lehrman Group Educational Counsel and he has been interviewed by the press seeking insight into the online education industry on numerous occasions.
Mr. DeSantis holds an M.A. in Education and Human Development from the George Washington University and a B.A. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. He currently resides in Brielle, New Jersey.
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