Dr. Howard G. Wright is the Program Specialist for the Changing Lanes Mentoring Program and Instructor of First Year Seminar at Alabama A & M University. Named to the position since 2008, he manages Alabama A & M University's Changing Lanes Mentoring Program of 350 mentors and protégées. He is responsible for the budgeting, fund-raising, training, assessment, continuous quality improvement, and the development of relationships and networks among institutional leaders, alumnus, and corporate partners. From 2004 to 2008, Dr. Wright was the Customer Operations Trainer for West Corporation. He supported the AT & T group by training over 1000 customer service agents. Certified by AT & T as an adult educator to train its business and cellular customer agents, he played a pivotal role in assessment, curriculum design, and quality control and was a frequent contributor to their online university.
Venturing into the food industry, Dr. Wright served as a Restaurant General Manager for Hononco Inc, a Taco Bell franchisee from 2002 to 2004. He was responsible for hiring, training, and developing personnel to generate sales in excess of $1.2 million annually. During this period, he also served as a Residential Life Manager II at Alabama A & M University where he managed the residential hall education program for over 450 students.
In 1997, Dr. Wright joined J. Wray & Nephew, Appleton Estates Ltd as the Agri-Business/ Project Manager in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, and was responsible for the production and harvesting of over 2000 acres of sugar cane. He prepared and managed the strategic and budget plans for the agriculture division, developed an in-house academy, monitored an annual budget of $7 million, and managed a $1 million distillery waste management project to meet ISO9000 quality guidelines.
Dr. Wright received a Bachelor’s of Science degree magma cum laude in Agri-Business from Florida A & M University in 1993. In 1997, he received a Master of Business Administration degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resource Management, and in 2004 he received an Educational Specialist degree in the Administration of Higher Education from Alabama A & M University. In 2008 he received a Doctorate of Education in Education Administration with a concentration in Higher Education Administration. Dr. Wright’s research focuses on the use of Continuous Quality Improvement in the Retention of African American males at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He has attended several workshops on assessment and learning outcomes, accreditation, and technology in education.
Dr. Wright serve on the board of directors of Willow Point Condominium Association, chaired the Learning Community Exploratory Committee, served on the Judiciary Board, the Quality Improvement Plan Committee, and the New Student Orientation Committee at Alabama A & M University.
Dr. Wright is the author of Process Improvement for Historically Black Colleges and universities: A Practical Guide to Improving Institutional Effectiveness at HBCUs. His current interest are the integration of technology in training and development, the integration of continuous quality improvement in education management and student retention.
He and his wife Andrea and their four children reside in Huntsville, Alabama.
