For 25 years Mary Vencill managed and conducted an estimated 60 BPA projects contributing to the effectiveness of social policy, program design, and program management. These included research, program evaluation, and technical assistance projects, ranging from studies of national importance to highly specific examinations of a single local program. Among her strongest areas of policy interest are employers' receptivity to publicly-funded programs, the effectiveness of services for at-risk youth, increasing the quality of services and program management, and facilitating equal access to services for traditionally-underserved populations. Since joining BPA in 1980, she has worked in numerous areas of social and economic policy, principally employment, youth development, disability, welfare, aging, and economic/business development. In addition, she played a lead role in the creation of BPA's ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) and served as the company's Chief Operating Officer between 1986 and 1994, and as Chief Executive Officer between 1994 and 2002.

Mary left BPA in July 2003 and is now a BPA Affiliate, working on Technical Assistance Guide for Serving Dislocated Workers Requiring Multicultural Service Strategies and Solutions.

Other Selected BPA Projects:

• Technical Assistance Guide on Health Care Sector Initiatives
• How Small Businesses Learn
• Evaluation of the Colorado Works Program
• A Random Assignment Evaluation of the Center for Employment Training Replication Sites
• National Random Assignment Evaluation of the Quantum Opportunity Program
• Expanding Options: Comparative Analysis of DOL/ETA Experience with Microenterprise Training Initiatives
• Evaluation of the DOL Disability Employment Grants
• Understanding the Role of Intermediaries under WIA
• Evaluation of the Defense Conversion Adjustment Demonstration
• Youth in the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA)
• A Study of Accommodations Provided to Handicapped Employees by Federal Contractors

Related Experience:

• Served on the ESOP Association's Chapter Council Executive Committee and the California-Western States Chapter Steering Committee
• Researcher at the Center for Applied Manpower Research
• Graduate Intern at the U.S. Department of Labor, San Francisco Regional Office