Brad Paleg

Following two years as the Acting Director of the Office of Information and Education Technology for the University of Maryland's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Brad serves as the Educational Technologist. In that capacity, Brad works with the College's faculty and staff and provides leadership in supporting their technology-based collaborative, conferencing, and teaching and learning responsibilities.

Brad’s educational background and work experience have been a combination of information systems technologies for education and business management and administration. He received his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Management Information Systems from the State University of New York and a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree from Virginia Tech with a concentration in management science. He also holds a graduate certificate in distance education and technology from the University of Maryland University College and the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany. Brad recently completed a Master's degree in Medical Cannabis Science and Therapeutics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Pharmacy.

From May 2015 to January 2017, Brad served as University of Maryland Extension’s (UME) Acting Assistant Director of Operations (ADO).  Working closely with the Associate Dean / Associate Director of UME, he provided management oversight for faculty/staff in UME with regard to organizational function. Brad provided support to Area Extension Directors (AEDs), Baltimore City Extension Director (BCED), and unit chairs/coordinators in the areas of fiscal management, personnel management, and public relations. He supported UME vision, mission and program initiatives and priorities and managed field operations to support those areas statewide. In carrying out these duties, Brad insured implementation of all University, AGNR College and UME organizational policies and procedures. Brad also represented the interest of all field based faculty and staff as part of the UME Leadership Team.

Brad has served in a coordinating role for the most recent University of Maryland Extension Statewide Conference held in 2014, as well as significant participation with the most recent UME Strategic Plan Committee and work teams. In 2015, his led a very successful 3 day Program Planning Connect for 4-H educators to launch their programmatic direction in line with our UME Strategic Plan. He was principally involved in the distance education component of the North East Extension Region 4-H Volunteer Conference and provided leadership to coordination of teaching systems for 13 states that included Extension Educators as well as Extension volunteers. On an international scale, Brad has assisted with distance learning systems for our 4-H military training programs across Europe and Bahrain. He was also critically involved in UME hosting the national military family summit at UMD in 2011 working closely with the Associate Dean and Director.

For over 10 years, Brad had responsibility for the Office of Computer and Network Services in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In that position, he was responsible for the leadership and direction of a unit made up of systems engineers, computer programmers, media technologists, and computer support staff. He managed a budget of over $600,000 and managed the support systems, including distributed and distance learning technologies, for over 800 users in the College. He has also worked as an adjunct professor teaching computer applications and information systems management.

During the period of 2006-2009, Brad was the co-principal investigator for a $540,000 USDA National Integrated Food Safety grant entitled, Risk Analysis-based Food Defense Certification Program for Professional and Academic Audiences. From 2010-2012, Brad was a member of the Rural Health multi-state research project team. A part of that research included testing audience response technology (clickers) in focus group research situations with rural, low-income mothers. An article in the Journal of Extension documents that work (http://www.joe.org/joe/2013august/a3.php). He has also published in the Journal of Academic Nutrition and Dietetics, the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and the Food Safety Magazine.

International work has been part of Brad’s experiences, as well. He has supported AGNR faculty and administration with projects in Russia, Taiwan, and China using technologies and strategies to enable meaningful and effective communication, teaching and learning, and collaborations. These projects varied from partnering with international researchers and educators for planning purposes, hosting veterinary training sessions for practitioners in Stavropol, Russia, and coordinating joint web conference-based academic classes in Moscow, Taipei, and other locations. Prior to joining AGNR, Brad volunteered on a collective community in Israel by the Mediterranean Sea, where he worked in varying capacities in the dairy, poultry house, orange, grapefruit and pomelo groves, and avocado fields. He then volunteered for an agricultural collective by the Dead Sea for a half year, farming 2,000 date (medjoul, deglet nour) palms.

Brad has received numerous awards, including the UMD College of Agriculture & Natural Resources On-Campus Staff Excellence Award (2010); the University of Maryland (UMD) Landmark Award for exceptional long-term achievements in support of international life at the University of Maryland (2008); the Agriculture Communicators in Education (ACE) Silver Award for Distanced Education and Instructional Design (2003); the Nokia Award for participation in the Mobile Learning Workshop and International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Pre-World Conference events in Oldenburg, Germany, (March 27 - April 1, 2001); and, the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) Infrastructure Development Award (2001, 2002).