Meet the Prosper Lincoln Leadership Team (2016-2019)

Published 9/23/2016

Prosper Lincoln’s four leaders wake up every day focused on making progress on their goals to Lift Lincoln Higher. The backgrounds of each leader serve them well to achieve the community agenda priorities by year 2020: to nurture every child on the path to success; to provide opportunities for people to realize career aspirations; and to create a vibrant culture of innovation.

MICHELLE SUAREZ:

As Prosper Lincoln’s Early Childhood Developer, Michelle Suarez is a life-long educator whose career has been spent serving our most vulnerable children and families. Suarez retired as a 19-year Lincoln Public Schools elementary principal (Calvert and Everett). Before becoming an administrator, she taught preschool-age children, kindergarten, first grade and sixth grades over 15 years in three school districts. Throughout her public school career, Suarez specialized in parent engagement and community partnership to support strong schools. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and her master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Suarez and her husband, John, are the proud parents of two daughters who are both elementary school teachers.

BRYAN SECK:

Connecting people with part-time jobs to full-time careers has become a passion for Bryan Seck. Prior to joining Prosper Lincoln as the Employment Skills Developer, he was the Homeless Outreach Specialist for Lincoln Public Schools where he helped 500 homeless students each year. Before relocating to Lincoln, Seck was a program evaluator/auditor of federal public health programs as a Senior Associate for ICF International in New York City, and also served in the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan. Seck holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Wagner School at New York University. He is married, has two dogs, and tries to grow vegetables.

RICH CLAUSSEN:

After a 30-year career in a nationally-recognized advertising firm, Rich Claussen is now spurring innovation and entrepreneurship as Prosper Lincoln’s Innovation Ambassador. As a Partner, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Bailey Lauerman, Claussen was recognized as the Marketer of the Year by the American Marketing Association’s Lincoln Chapter (AMA), Advertising Man of the Year and Silver Medal recipient by the Advertising Federation of Lincoln, served three years on the AMA’s National Professional Chapters Council and in 2013 was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame. A 1982 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism and Telecommunications, Claussen and his wife, Ginna, are the proud parents of two sons – Richard and Bruce.