Meet the Team

David Bailis, Senior Director of Operations, oversees the day-to-day operations of the division. Dave has years of experience creating content and managing service providers for a number of publishing companies. He has held leadership roles at National Geographic, Symmetry Creative Production, and Tighe Publishing. Before moving into his current role, Dave was Westchester’s Content Director for STEM. This interview shares more about Dave's extensive background in education.
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Amanda Robb, Senior Supervising Editor, Math, oversees all Math content development programs, drawing upon her background in teaching and educational publishing. As a teacher, she worked closely with colleagues to plan and facilitate engaging differentiated instruction in order to reach all students. Her educational publishing work includes project management as well as writing and editing for McGraw Hill, Great Minds, and other publishers. She applies her experiences in both realms to Westchester projects to positively impact students on a larger scale, while delivering programs that meet the needs of our clients. She is passionate about building strong client relationships, maximizing productivity, and cultivating community involvement.
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Sandra Colmenares, Senior Supervising Editor, Languages and Translation, brings a nearly 30-year background in the educational publishing industry to the projects she leads. She has worked for education publishers, including McGraw-Hill Education, Encyclopedia Britannica, Benchmark Education, and for various publishing vendors. Sandra has managed translation and dual language education programs in the core subjects of mathematics, science, and ELA and has developed core Spanish materials for SLA.
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Debbie Allen, Content Director, Career and Technical Education, has a decades-long history in the field of educational publishing. A generalist, she is experienced in conceptualizing, writing, editing, and managing the editorial development of materials for all major curricular areas and all grade levels—projects spanning from preK literacy to middle school career exploration to GED science prep. Previous work in fields such as scholarly publishing, technical writing, and business journalism has armed her with a robust understanding of the process of translating knowledge acquired through subject matter experts into written products comprehensible to varied audiences. This diverse background equips her for the wide-ranging realm of CTE. Debbie is recognized for her quality ethic, efficiency, and effective management and mentorship of others, and she applies these attributes in assisting Westchester clients with their CTE product development needs.
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Chris Herrfurth, Production Manager, manages production work for Westchester Education Services client projects. He leads resources in the U.S., as well as offshore teams in Chennai and Noida. Chris spent years on the production teams at Mazer and TSI and is adept at leveraging technology to streamline production workflows. Read more about Chris' experiences prior to joining Westchester in this blog post. This background enables Chris' team to implement complex workflows with precision, processing thousands of pages efficiently and accurately.
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Nilofer Ali, Resources Manager and DEI Committee Lead, is responsible for the recruiting, onboarding, and management of the freelance talent contracted for client projects. Additionally, she has implemented an internship program in coordination with colleges in the Dayton, Ohio area to increase awareness for students, particularly those from populations historically underrepresented in educational publishing, about the career opportunities available to them. Prior to joining Westchester Education Services, Nilofer worked as a teacher in private and public PreK-8 classrooms with diverse populations in urban, suburban, and virtual settings. You can read more about how Nilofer's teaching experiences inform her current role in this blog post.
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Tim Cross, Business Development Manager, is engaged in creating connections between educational publishers, educational technology providers, and our team of subject matter experts. His experience ranges across marketing, sales, editorial, and production to teaching, providing him with a deep background to draw on while working with clients to develop effective solutions. His education includes an English degree from the University of Toronto and graduate work at the University of South Dakota. Prior to joining Westchester, Tim worked in various positions at Baker University, Johnson County Community College, and Allen Press.
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