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Faculty

Dave Wright

Dave Wright spent nearly thirty-one years at three federal oversight agencies (the General Accountability Office; the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General; and the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General). Initially hired as a writer/editor, Dave noticed that some of the training materials used in GAO courses were not either well-written or well-produced. He ended up in GAO's new Training Institute, as manager of the writing courses, and gained valuable experience watching, for hundreds of hours, English college professors teach most of the writing courses. Eventually, he took on teaching these courses himself, courses designed for the new employee through managing writing as a supervisor. He also developed a course, "The Writing Seminar," which used computer software to analyze writing samples, and combined that information with his own analysis of participants' samples.

He moved to the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services to teach writing, and developed "Write to the Point," a 2-day course he has taught dozens of times throughout the United States, both for HHS and occasionally for other agencies. He has drawn on his experiences as a writer/editor, program analyst, management analyst, training coordinator, and supervisory management analyst to embolden his writing courses, and he has also taught courses on how to prepare effective presentations, how to train managers who need to testify before Congress, and how to develop career development skills.

He has spent 12 of the last 15 years as both President and Treasurer of his condominium association, and has volunteered extensively over the years planning and executing "Rebuilding Together" projects (formerly Christmas in April), where houses are restored to livable conditions in one day. For over 20 years he has spent one or two weeks each summer at a camp for families on Mount Desert Island, Maine, as social director and evening leader.

Dave's goals are visiting the five U.S. states he hasn't been to yet, travelling more to foreign countries, raising tarantulas, and collecting the etchings of John Taylor Arms. For most of 2011 at the National Gallery of Art is an exhibition, "The Gothic Spirit of John Taylor Arms," and many of the etchings on exhibit have either been already donated to, or promised to, the Gallery, by Dave.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Botany from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, in 1972, and a Masters Degree in Theological Studies from Virginia Theological Seminary, in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1977. He also did post-graduate work as a chaplain at a mental hospital in California.