Related Pages Board of Trustees Leadership Team

Leadership Team

President

Richard Rubsamen is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sierra Nevada College, a private four-year liberal arts college.  Previously, Richard was President and Chief Operating Officer of Cardean Learning Group, initially joining the organization as Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer in 2007. In that role, he was responsible for managing a broad range of departments, including Financial Aid support, Information Technology, Audit and Compliance and Project Management. Prior to joining Cardean, Richard held the position of Chief Financial Officer at Sierra Nevada College for a period of three years, during which time he gained an intimate knowledge of higher education. Prior to joining Sierra Nevada College, Richard held a number of senior financial, operations and general management positions with a number of organizations in the gaming, hospitality, engineering and financial services industries, including Chief Financial Officer at Harrah’s and Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, a major operating division of Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. Richard is a CPA who attended the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from California State University, East Bay.

Executive Vice President and Provost

Lynn Gillette - Dr. Gillette was appointed as provost in May 2008, after serving as chair of the Business department since August 2007. Gillette has a wealth of experience, having served for fifteen years in higher education administration, most including his role as Vice President for Business, Administration and Compliance, and Professor of Business, at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. Among his many administrative roles, Gillette has served as a dean of a College of Business, as an Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and as a Vice President responsible for institutional effectiveness and compliance with regional accreditation (he’s served on ten SACS visiting teams— the Commission on Colleges’ Southern Association of Colleges and Schools). Gillette has worked extensively with faculty at a variety of academic institutions in curriculum and program development, student and faculty recruitment, and faculty development. He also leads in the areas of institutional assessment and effectiveness, taking Spalding University from having virtually no assessment to its present position wherein assessment is now present in each academic program and each administrative unit. Gillette received his doctoral in economics at Texas A & M University and completed the management development program at Harvard University. He has published extensively in his field, as well as having authored numerous book and journal reviews. He is an enthusiastic proponent of study abroad and has traveled to France, Bulgaria, and Turkey to establish study-abroad programs, and has taken undergraduate and graduate students abroad to areas as far-flung as London, Santiago, Edinburgh, Mexico City, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur.

Vice President for Development

Madylon Meiling - Dr. Meiling was appointed as Vice President for Development in January 2009. Meiling’s roots at the college run deep. From 2003 to 2006, she served as a professor and director of entrepreneurial strategies in the Department of Business, and then in 2006 she stepped in as the department chair. After leaving the college, she was appointed treasurer of the Sierra Nevada College Foundation Board, serving from 2007 to 2008. Dr. Meiling has more than fifteen years of experience as a corporate consultant and executive coach, specializing in leadership development, team learning, emotional intelligence, organizational culture and change initiatives with Fortune 100 Companies. She received her B.A. in education from Brooklyn College; her M.Ed. with a focus on curriculum development from Rhode Island College; and her Ph.D. in education and leadership from the University of Tulsa and has twenty-five years of experience in the field of education, including teaching, administration, facilitation, curriculum development, and research. She and husband Dean Meiling are well-known for their generous philanthropic work in the community, and Madylon has established herself as a great champion of the college.

Dean of Faculty

Dan O'Bryan - A Nevada native born in Reno, O'Bryan earned his B.A. at the University of Nevada, Reno; his M.A. at the University of California, Berkeley; and his Ph.D. at the University of Washington.  He taught at Old College in Reno, Nevada before coming to Sierra Nevada College in 1992.  Currently, he teaches history, philosophy and religion and became the Dean of Faculty at the beginning of the Fall Term, 2006.