Dawn still remembers the problems she had finding child care for her twins nine years ago. “My family had moved from Dillon, Montana, to Bozeman, and I couldn’t find a spot for both my twins in the same place,” she says. “I was also concerned about the quality of care they would receive since Montana doesn’t have education requirements for child care providers.”
This was an issue that had already come to Dawn’s attention at her previous job in Dillon as program coordinator for the early education department at the University of Montana Western. “My role involved recruiting and advising students,” she says. “I was there to get to know the students, build rapport with them and make sure they had a point of contact.” Dawn was the person who students called if they had a problem they couldn’t solve, and working with them sparked her passion for the early learning profession. Then, after eight years at the University of Montana Western she felt prepared to do even more to bring quality training to the field.
In February 2020, Dawn took a job at the early Childhood Project, which is the state of Montana’s workforce registry program. A month later, the COVID pandemic struck the nation, and the impact was dramatic in Montana, as it was across the country. “At one point, we were seeing a two-to-one turnover ratio,” she says. “That meant that two people were leaving the field for every one person that child care programs hired. So, we needed a way to bring more people into the early childhood field and give them quality training in an efficient way.”
A CDA® registered apprenticeship program for educators was the answer, and Dawn brainstormed with Rhiannon Shook, a child care workforce specialist for the state, on how to make it happen. Rhiannon has been in charge of building the curriculum and making connections with partner organizations to gain their support for the program, while Dawn has worked on the administrative end, ensured accountability and reached out to potential candidates for the program.
“My role as special projects coordinator is marketing, recruitment and reviewing the eligibility of those who might want to participate in the apprenticeship program,” as Dawn explains. “We’re selective because we want to recruit people who will finish the program, and the process of finding the right folks begins when we send out twice-monthly descriptions of the program to the state’s entire early childhood workforce. We include an interest form and invite those who respond to a live training session where they can get a more in-depth view of the program and ask any questions they might have.”
Educators need to understand what they’re getting into when they undertake the CDA registered apprenticeship, as Dawn points out. “So, I tell people that they’re making a commitment that requires 120 hours of coursework and additional hours of homework while working full-time in the early childhood field.”
And once Dawn gets educators onboard, she continues to work behind the scenes. “I make sure that the apprentices’ contact information is up to date, send out the CDA textbooks, and help ensure they get college credit for their coursework,” Dawn explains. “I also help the apprentices find mentors, if they don’t have one, and encourage the mentors to take training we’ve developed so they’re better prepared to empower apprentices to succeed in completing the program.”
It would also help, as Dawn suggests, to have a more robust resource library for those who are participating in the apprenticeship program. “It could provide information, for example, on mentoring resources, how to fill out the paperwork to receive college credit for CDA coursework and anything else they need to be successful,” Dawn says, so she’s now looking into ways to put the information on a website and keep it up to date.
She’s also exploring ways to provide educators with more ongoing chances for professional growth to meet the needs of child care employers. “There are a number of training topics that we’re considering now, including social-emotional learning, meal planning, bookkeeping, parent engagement and inclusion,” Dawn says. “Our next steps will be to put together a package of trainings, so we’re now gathering feedback from employers on the training that would benefit their programs most.”
And there’s another issue Dawn would like to explore now that the apprenticeship program has trained two cohorts of CDAs and is working on a third. “Along the way,” as she explains, “the program has had a pretty high success rate, but I’d like to follow up with the people who didn’t complete the program and failed to earn a CDA. I want to learn more about the barriers that held them back—whether it’s time management, family responsibilities or just not keeping up with the coursework—so we can keep people invested and motivate them to stick with the program.” There’s a lot at stake as Dawn saw after the principal of a rural high school contacted her for help.
“The principal was unable to retain teachers because the high school didn’t have qualified early educators to staff its on-site child care,” as Dawn recalls. “So, we called him as soon as we had the apprenticeship program up and running. The school had two of its educators go through the program and they earned their CDAs. Now those educators have the skills to work effectively with young learners, and hopefully that’s increased the chances the high school can retain the teachers its older students need.”
There are clear signs that the CDA apprenticeship program makes an impact, as Jamie, the owner of a child care center, told Dawn. “She had opened the center,” Dawn says, “after moving to Bozeman from Nevada, a state that recognizes the CDA on its career ladder. So, she jumped at the chance to have one of her educators join the apprenticeship program. The employee had only been in the program for a few weeks when Jamie noticed a total change in the way she engaged with families. It was like night and day, as Jamie told me one day when I stopped by her center to drop off textbooks for the CDA.”
Dawn is happy to deliver books and provide any other assistance she can to advance the apprenticeship program. “I’m very committed to the program because Montana needs quality early educators and it needs them to stay in the field. If that means I need to deliver books, I’ll deliver books,” she says. “We want to break any barriers down, so all our apprentices can succeed in getting their CDA.”
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Vice President of Product
Mackenzie Pelland serves as Vice President of Product at the Council. In this role, she oversees the Council’s product strategy and portfolio, including credentialing programs, educational publications, professional development resources, and branded merchandise, ensuring offerings are sustainable and responsive to the evolving needs of early childhood educators and the broader early care and education field. Her work focuses on building scalable, user-centered products that strengthen quality and integrity across the Council’s credentialing, educational, and professional learning offerings.
Prior to this role, Mackenzie served as Director of ECE Observation Systems at the Council, where she oversaw the observation portion of the CDA® credentialing assessment process and led the ECE Observation Team. She also worked to support, refine, and strengthen the Professional Development Specialist community to better meet the needs of a diverse CDA® candidate population.
Before joining the Council, Mackenzie was Senior Director of Monitoring and Compliance Systems at Acelero Learning, where she led the development and execution of monitoring systems related to federal grant compliance, child care licensing, health and safety, incident management, and facilities compliance across Head Start programs nationwide. She also previously served as Program Accountability and Policy Implementation Manager at New York City’s Department of Education within the Division of Early Childhood Education.
Mackenzie is recognized as a credentialing specialist by the Institute for Credentialing Excellence. She holds a master’s degree in education policy from Teachers College, Columbia University, a Certificate in Education and Program Evaluation from Georgetown University, and a bachelor’s degree in politics and education from Occidental College.
Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Elisa Shepherd is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the Council, where she leads initiatives to advance the Council’s mission and strategic plan through designing, managing, and executing a comprehensive stakeholder relationship strategy.
With over 25 years of experience in early childhood education (ECE), Elisa has dedicated her career to developing impactful programs, professional development opportunities, and public policies that support working families, young children, and ECE staff. Before joining the Council, Elisa held numerous roles within the childcare industry. Most recently, she served as Associate Vice President at The Learning Experience and as Senior Manager at KinderCare Education, where she influenced government affairs and public policies across 40 states.
Elisa’s commitment to leadership is reflected in her external roles on the Early Care and Education Consortium Board of Directors, the Florida Chamber Foundation Board of Trustees, and as the DEI Caucus Leader for KinderCare Education. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Childcare Exchange’s Leadership Initiative.
Elisa earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a focus on child development from Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.
Vice President of People and Culture
Janie Payne is the Vice President of People and Culture for the Council for Professional Recognition. Janie is responsible for envisioning, developing, and executing initiatives that strategically manage talent and culture to align people strategies with the overarching business vision of the Council. Janie is responsible for driving organizational excellence through strategic talent practices, orchestrating workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management as well as a myriad of other Human Resources Programs. She is accountable for driving effectiveness by shaping organizational structure for optimal efficiency. Janie oversees strategies that foster a healthy culture to include embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization.
In Janie’s prior role, she was the Vice President of Administration at Equal Justice Works, where she was responsible for leading human resources, financial operations, facilities management, and information technology. She was also accountable for developing and implementing Equal Justice Works Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy focused on attracting diverse, mission-oriented talent and creating an inclusive and equitable workplace environment. With more than fifteen years of private, federal, and not-for-profit experience, Janie is known for her intuitive skill in administration management, human resources management, designing and leading complex system change, diversity and inclusion, and social justice reform efforts.
Before joining Equal Justice Works, Janie was the Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Communities, where she was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of integrated HR and diversity strategies. Her work impacted employees in over twenty-two countries. She was responsible for the effective management of different cultural, legal, regulatory, and economic systems for both domestic and international employees. Prior to Global Communities, Janie enjoyed a ten-year career with the federal government. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she held key strategic human resources positions with multiple cabinet-level agencies and served as an advisor and senior coach to leaders across the federal sector. In these roles, she received recognition from management, industry publications, peers, and staff for driving the creation and execution of programs that created an engaged and productive workforce.
Janie began her career with Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic), where she held numerous roles of increasing responsibility, where she directed a diversity program that resulted in significant improvement in diversity profile measures. Janie was also a faculty member for the company’s Black Managers Workshop, a training program designed to provide managers of color with the skills needed to overcome barriers to their success that were encountered because of race. She initiated a company-wide effort to establish team-based systems and structures to impact corporate bottom line results which was recognized by the Department of Labor. Janie was one of the first African American women to be featured on the cover of Human Resources Executive magazine.
Janie received her M.A. in Organization Development from American University. She holds numerous professional development certificates in Human Capital Management and Change Management, including a Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources certificate from Cornell University. She completed the year-long Maryland Equity and Inclusion Leadership Program sponsored by The Schaefer Center for Public Policy and The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. She is a trained mediator and Certified Professional Coach. She is a graduate of Leadership America, former board chair of the NTL Institute and currently co-steward of the organization’s social justice community of practice, and a member of The Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Janie is the Board Chairperson for the Special Education Citizens Advisory Council for Prince Georges County where she is active in developing partnerships that facilitate discussion between parents, families, educators, community leaders, and the PG County school administration to enhance services for students with disabilities which is her passion. She and her husband Randolph reside in Fort Washington Maryland.
Chief Operations Officer (COO)
Andrew Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Council. In this role, Andrew oversees the Programs Division, which includes the following operational functions: credentialing, growth and business development, marketing and communications, public policy and advocacy, research, innovation, and customer relations.
Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the early care and education field. Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President of Partnership and Engagement with Acelero Learning and Shine Early Learning, where he led the expansion of state and community-based partnerships to produce more equitable systems of service delivery, improved programmatic quality, and greater outcomes for communities, children and families. Prior to that, he served as Director of Early Learning at Follett School Solutions.
Andrew earned his MBA from the University of Baltimore and Towson University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Jan Bigelow serves as Chief Financial Officer at the Council and has been with the organization since February of 2022.
Jan has more than 30 years in accounting and finance experience, including public accounting, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She has held management-level positions with BDO Seidman, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Communities In Schools, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and American Humane. Since 2003, Jan has worked exclusively in the non-profit sector where she has been a passionate advocate in improving business operations in order to further the mission of her employers.
Jan holds a CPA from the State of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College. She resides in Alexandria VA with her husband and dog.
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