Donald E. Leisey, EdD, has been an educational entrepreneur for more than twenty years. He founded and served as chairman, CEO, and majority owner of Merryhill Schools, Inc., which was operating twenty-two schools when the company was sold to a publicly traded company in 1989. Leisey was the founder and owner for twenty years of The Report Card, Inc. which operated educational stores in northern California. He has been a management consultant to many public and private schools. Dr. Leisey is an investor, serves on boards of directors of for-profit and nonprofit corporations, and is codirector of the International Academy for Educational Entrepreneurship.

Prior to becoming an educational entrepreneur, Leisey served for twenty years in various capacities in Pennsylvania, California, and Japan, primarily as a teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, business manager, and university instructor.

From 1973 to 1979 he was superintendent of schools for San Rafael City Schools in Marin County, California. Leisey received a bachelor's degree from West Chester University, a master's degree from Villanova University and a doctorate in education and certificate in school business administration from the University of Southern California.

Charles W. Lavaroni, MS, has been active in education since 1949, when he first started teaching in California. In the ensuing years he has served as an elementary school principal, assistant superintendent, and superintendent in the public schools of California. He has also been director of teacher education and dean of admissions and financial aid at Dominican College in San Rafael, California. He received his BS and MS degrees from California State University at San Francisco. Lavaroni was the owner-operator of the Kittredge School, a very successful, small independent elementary school in San Francisco. While at Kittredge he founded and was the first president of the National Independent Private Schools Association (NIPSA), recognized by the US Office of Education as the accrediting agency of for-profit elementary and secondary schools.

Lavaroni has authored and coauthored several textbooks as well as many articles and papers. He has served as a consultant for programs in critical thinking, inquiry training, assessment and evaluation, and individualized instruction throughout the US and eight foreign countries. He has also been involved in developing five corporations focusing on education. Currently, he is codirector, with Leisey, of the International Academy for Educational Entrepreneurship.