HISTORY

With beginnings in founder Dennis Rose’s home office in Davis California, DRA grew into a recognized evaluation resource for active collaboration, tailored application, and a quality, timely product. DRA’s evaluation approach merged analytic techniques, advanced studies in phenomenology, an abiding curiosity about effective organizing, and a desire to help residents strengthen their communities. Prior to founding DRA, Dennis spent nearly ten years building and testing information development strategies for various California State departments. This work included helping structure literally hundreds of grant projects, and included an extremely wide variety of stakeholders ranging from community residents to the Governor’s Office.

In 1986, Dennis took the lessons he had learned about public programs and began DRA. His first clients -- Sierra Health Foundation and the Haigh-Scatena Foundation – provided DRA with its initial opportunities for working with community-based efforts throughout Northern California. Building on these consults, DRA began working partnerships with diverse organizations, ranging from small community-based organizations to large public, private non-profit and private for-profit agencies. DRA remained committed to honoring California’s diversity, and continued its history of working with both small and large organizations. A selection of these organizations includes:

Past Health and Community Well-Being Consulting

The California Endowment • California County Medical Services Program • California Health Decisions • California Public Health Association • California State Office of Family Planning / Barbara Aved Associates • California State University, San Francisco • California Telemedicine and eHealth Center • CARES, Inc. • Cellular One, Central California Region • Center for Collaborative Planning • Child Abuse Council of Sacramento • East Bay Funders • French American Charitable Trust (FACT) • The Haigh-Scatena Foundation • Health Officers Association of California • James Irvine Foundation • MEDICUS Systems Corporation • Mendocino County, Department of Social Services • Mercy Hospitals, Bioethics Committee • Modoc County Public Health Dept. • Plumas County Department of Health Services • Plumas County Superintendent of Schools • Public Health Institute • Sacramento County Department of Public Health • Sacramento Crisis Nursery • SAFE STREETS, Inc. • Sierra Health Foundation • Siskiyou County Office of Education • Siskiyou Public Health Department • University of San Francisco • Western Consortium Of Health Professionals, Inc. • Yolo County Department of Public Health

Past Criminal Justice Consulting

COSMOS Corp. • Department of Public Health, County of Yolo • EMT Associates • The Haigh-Scatena Foundation • KCRA Television/Kelly Broadcasting • National Council on Crime and Delinquency • Northern California Criminal Justice Training and Education Center • San Mateo Probation Department • Sierra Health Foundation • Vital Issues Projects, Inc.

Past Education Consulting

American Conservatory Theater • California Elected Women's Association for Education and Research • California Public Health Association • California State Department of Education • California State Fire Marshall • California State University, Sacramento • California State University, San Francisco, Student Health Center • Early Childhood Resources • EMT Associates • Far West Labs • Inter-Governmental Management Training Program • League of California Cities • Los Angeles County Office of Education • Marquette University • Northern California Criminal Justice Training and Education Center • University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management • University of San Francisco, College of Professional Studies • U.S. Department of Labor, Region IX • Western Consortium Of Health Professionals, Inc.

Past Professional Ethics Consulting

American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco • California Elected Women's Association for Education and Research • California Health Decisions, Board of Directors • California Public Health Association • California State Fire Marshall • California State University, San Francisco • Employment Development Dept. / State of California • Inter-Governmental Management Training Program • League of California Cities • Mercy Hospitals, Hospital Bioethics Committee

Past Substance Abuse: Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Consulting

COSMOS Corp. • East Bay Funders • The Effort, Inc. • Health Department, County of Sacramento • Nevada County Office of Education • Plumas County Department of Health Services • Sacramento Community Services Planning Council • Sierra Health Foundation

VALUES

DRA was a small firm specializing in direct service and training whose work is driven by the overarching goal of building our clients’ internal capacities. DRA was committed to need-driven evaluations which involved accurate assessment of the clients’ needs, tailored application of technique, ownership of evaluations by information stakeholders, and most importantly, matched expectations between the consultants and clients. Consequently, active collaboration with clients was central to DRA’s work.

DRA’s approach was demanding for clients, since the partnership DRA advanced involved an iterative and jointly-owned information development agenda. The need for a true partnership maintained from our initial meeting through to the end of the contract and beyond. Well versed in values clarification and issue resolution, DRA always began its work with a concentrated focus on the client; on the issues, values, and needs necessary for the organization to meet its desired goals. Based on the self-identified goals of the clients, DRA worked to provide organizations with a complete viewpoint, including options, contingencies and pro-active recommendations.

Through needs assessment and “information interest” surveys, DRA initially assessed not only the needs of the client’s target populations, but also the needs of the organization itself. This approach allowed (and demanded) the sponsoring organization to see itself as included in the broad circle of proposed outcomes and impacts. The culmination of this process was not only a successful project which met the target populations’ needs, but also one that assisted the sponsoring organization in placing itself within the affected communities, as a strategic partner.

BIOS

Dennis Rose

Dennis Rose owns and managed Dennis Rose & Associates (DRA), which was founded in 1986 to deliver program evaluation, professional ethics, technical assistance and needs assessment/resource mapping services. Dennis worked with all facets of the economy: private for profit, private non-profit, public and community-based organizations. In addition to analytical work, he designed professional ethics and evaluation curricula and/or provided training and instruction for many of these clients.

Dennis carried out his doctoral work in philosophy at Marquette University. Since his graduate work, Dennis designed curricula and taught for the University of California, Davis, the University of San Francisco and California State University, Sacramento. Prior to founding his firm, Dennis worked within California State government, holding positions ranging from Staff Services Analyst to Deputy Director.

His expertise and experience include a full range of evaluative techniques as well as needs assessment, management and cost-benefit analysis, with a primary commitment to collaborative/participatory evaluation, organizational values clarification and program planning.

Kelly Elder

In her role as Senior Associate, Kelly Elder brought to the DRA team a decade of experience in the areas of strategic planning, collaborative/coalition development and assessment, community-based assessment and planning, and participatory evaluation.

Following completion of a graduate program in Community/Clinical Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, Kelly worked in a variety of professional environments including community-based health organizations, County Health Departments, State Departments and Federal programs. In addition to enabling a broad perspective and a sound base in research and evaluation, this diverse background provided DRA a strong foundation in program management, organizational planning, community building, collaboration, community organization, asset-based community development, and advocacy.

During her tenure with DRA Kelly managed and participated in a range of projects including statewide assessments, program planning and evaluation efforts, and organizational assessments. An extensive background in the area of training and technical assistance also facilitated a level of direct support to clients and projects that is widely recognized as a major expression of DRA’s commitment to local capacity building.

Robert Quade

Bob, a Senior Associate, was with DRA beginning in April 2000. He began his association with DRA working with projects relating to Indian Health Programs. He brought to the team strengths in economic and quantitative analysis, development and delivery of training, direct project experience, and a decade of working in Indian Country.

Bob earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Indiana State University. He has extensive background in education primarily at the college level, with twenty five years of teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in statistics and research design, economics, finance, management, and history through both traditional and distance education modalities.

His project management experience includes developing and administering projects designed to prepare Indians to manage Indian casinos and to develop micro-enterprises in Indian Country. As Institutional Researcher for D-Q University, he conducted studies on the effectiveness of their math and science programs, overall institutional effectiveness, and characteristics of students and their communities. As an independent consultant he worked with public schools, parks and recreation, and Tribal entities. With DRA, Bob served as a principal consultant for two multi-site state-wide programs, providing both technical support in the field and technical analysis in-house.

Kristi Marleau

Kristi was employed as an evaluation associate at DRA beginning in December 2001. She brought to the team an expertise in all things mathematical. Kristi received her B.S. in mathematics from CSU Stanislaus in 1999 and an M.S. in statistics from UC Davis in 2001.

In graduate school Kristi enjoyed the responsibility of teaching various undergraduate statistics courses. Currently, Kristi applied her analytic skills to all data collected through DRA’s various evaluation projects, including the statewide consumer satisfaction survey of grantees for The California Endowment. She also became adept in the use and construction of SPSS and Microsoft Access databases and assisted a wide variety of community-based and public organizations in the design, oversight and analysis of data systems.

Sara Rose

Sara, assisted DRA from its inception, progressing from clerical tasks to full associate status with DRA in January 2001. Sara brought to the team strong writing and qualitative analysis skills grounded in a solid theoretical background.

Sara graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a B.A. in English and Philosophy and received her M.A. from the New School for Social Research - New York in Liberal Studies and writing. While in graduate school, Sara’s focus was on the theoretical development of art and art movements and how those movements affect social understanding and community development. In addition to teaching an undergraduate Cultural Studies course while in graduate school, Sara worked as publication coordinator for the National Lawyer’s Guild in New York City. Sara’s contributions were instrumental in developing information and composing and consolidating reports on thirty-eight telemedicine and telehealth projects as the major portion of DRA's report on the California Telemedicine and eHealth Center’s (CTEC) statewide program. Sara was instrumental in planning many of DRA’s evaluations, especially in fact finding and conceptual development of evaluation approaches.