CRP, Inc. - CRP's Senior Staff

Corporate Resources

CRP's Senior Staff

Carolyn B. Rudd, Ed.D., President/CEO. - Dr. Rudd is the founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and President of CRP, Incorporated, a diversified and solutions-oriented management and professional services consulting firm. Her distinguished career spans over 30 years in education, proposal development, Federal contracting, consulting, business, and leadership development. Prior to establishing CRP in 1988, Dr. Rudd taught and served in leadership capacities at several universities and consulted for numerous Federal agencies and nonprofit organizations. Under her leadership, CRP has evolved into one of the leading businesses in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Dr. Rudd founded CRP in an effort to impact social policy and provide professional employment opportunities. In the years since, her company has earned a reputation for excellence in consultation and facilitation, training and technical assistance, research and evaluation, program management and coordination, and policy assessment and analysis. Today CRP, is considered an industry leader in providing logistical solutions in support of Federal policy and programmatic imperatives. Dr. Rudd is leading CRP on a path of strategic realignment designed to infuse cutting-edge business practices into its corporate infrastructure, create new efficiencies, and improve its competitive position. CRP's success is a testament to the high-performing, highly focused, and results-oriented organization that is an extension and embodiment of Dr. Rudd's leadership philosophy. She has long been a forceful and tireless advocate for minority-and women-owned businesses, and she consistently has used her position as a nationally recognized leader in the small business community to promote the interests of traditionally disadvantaged business people. Dr. Rudd counts among her many honors her participation as a member of Leadership Greater Washington (LGW), an organization that connects and challenges diverse regional leaders to improve the quality of life in the capital region. She was recently elected to LGW's Board of Directors. Dr. Rudd received her B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from Virginia State University and her Ed.D. from The College of William and Mary.

Bobby W. Austin, Ph.D. - Dr. Austin is a former foundation president, a university vice president, expert on American culture, editor and author. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. His 1996 report for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Repairing the Breach, was described by Washington Post columnist Bill Raspberry as the, "plan to save America." In the mid-1970s, he founded and edited the URBAN LEAGUE REVIEW, for the National Urban League, one of the nation's first policy journals devoted to policy issues affecting African Americans. He currently holds the General Hal G. Moore Chair on Contemplative Leadership at the Merton Institute in Louisville, Ky. As a cultural policy expert, Dr. Austin has served as special consultant on American Culture to the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In the field of higher education, he served as the director of educational policy for the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). In that position, he helped to craft and develop policy which led to the consolidation of all postsecondary education in Washington, DC. He is also the author of The Acacia Strategy (2010), an innovative sustainability plan for African American Public Higher Education in the 21st Century, which he wrote for the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund. As a consultant to the Thurgood Marshall Fund, he continues to lead the development of an online education think tank for all public HBCUs. He earned a B.A. degree in economics and sociology from Western Kentucky University, M.A. from Fisk University and Ph.D. from Canada's McMaster University. He has a post graduate diploma in educational management from Harvard University.

Shamai Carter, M.S. - Ms. Carter, a seasoned CRP project manager, has a decade of experience directing large-scale Federal logistics and meeting management projects. She successfully balances her time and attention among several contracts primarily aimed at ensuring client satisfaction. She also has broad-based experience in budget development, work plan development, database development and management, and staff and content experts supervision. Ms. Carter is highly competent in serving as the senior CRP's quality control monitor ensuring client satisfaction. Other areas of experience and skills Ms. Carter has include: working with web masters; technical computer troubleshooting; and webinar/webcast planning and management. She continues to receive verbal and written commendations for outstanding work from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) and the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) contracts and other clients. Ms. Carter is the recipient of a B.B.A. degree (with honors) in computer and information systems science from the University of the District of Columbia and an honors M.S. graduate in computer information resource management from the University of Maryland.

Conway Downing, Jr., J.D. - Mr. Downing is a seasoned business veteran, legal adviser, strategic development analyst, and health policy and small business advocate. In the 1970s, he founded and organized a community development corporation. He has also served as general counsel to a community hospital; an executive vice president and general counsel of a hospital/nursing home contract management firm; and has held both the positions of executive director and president of the National Association of Health Services Executives, the nation's leading advocacy and professional organization of minority health care administrators. He founded Parity, Inc., a tax-exempt, public-interest litigation organization; and Tidewater Dominion Small Business Lending Company, one of only 14 grandfathered, non-bank lending entities licensed and authorized by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to originate, sell, and service SBA-guaranteed loans. A graduate of Phillips Academy, Mr. Downing obtained his B.A. degree in government from Harvard College and J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar.

Sondra M. Gaines, Ed.D. - Dr. Gaines is an educator with over twenty-five years experience serving the needs of a diverse group of students and their families. Prior to coming to CRP, Dr. Gaines was the principal investigator for a pilot study that tested an instrument she created, The Education Preparation Tools© (EPT). These instruments are designed to aid students, regardless of their academic degree, to address issues that have historically hindered student progress. The EPT was an outgrowth of her work on the manual, The “Appropriate Object” of (Doctoral) Education: The Tenets of the Yale Report of 1828, How they Remain Relevant to Doctoral Education in the Twenty-First Century, & What Education Professionals Can do About it (2010). Additionally, Dr. Gaines has served as an administrator of academic and student services and an instructor of Research Methods as well as Old and New Testament Studies. Dr. Gaines holds a Doctor of Education Degree in Higher Education Administration from The George Washington University; a Master of Arts Degree in Practical Theology from Regent University; and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management and Consumer Studies/Program Management from The University of Maryland College Park. She has submitted to and Presented at peer-reviewed conferences and journals such as Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE), Higher Education in Review (HER), and Perspectives: The New York Journal of Adult Learning.

Jennifer S. Ragins, M.S. - Ms. Ragins, whose area of specialization is in health and human services, provides research analysis and technical support to a wide range of CRP clients. She has over 25 years of public and private sector experience in her field, serving as a policy advisor to two former District of Columbia mayors and to the Director of the Washington, D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS). During her DHS tenure, Ms. Ragins provided policy leadership for the implementation of the District's Turning Points Program, an integrated school-based service system for youth. Prior to joining CRP, she served as the school health policy officer for the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). Among her many accomplishments at DCPS, Ms. Ragins received honorary recognition for her role in developing the school system's blood-borne pathogens policy and influenza pandemic plan. She received additional recognition for her work on compliance management for DCPS's $20 million school health system, cooperative agreements, and student epidemiological studies. She also guided legislative efforts leading to the implementation of school-based health centers and increasing the provision of primary health care to indigent and foreign-born DCPS students. Ms. Ragins earned her B.S. degree in urban planning from the University of the District of Columbia, and she holds a M.S. degree in policy and administration from Columbia University's School of Social Work.

Edward Wofford, B.A. - Mr. Wofford has 30 years of demonstrated experience in proposal development and in the conduct and management of literature searches, literature reviews, research analysis and synthesis, document development, meeting summary preparation, and health program evaluation. He is adept in documenting the processes, content, and outcomes of meetings in multiple formats. He specializes in the preparation of technical reports, products, papers, materials, and other products spanning multiple disciplines, including behavioral health. A sampling of products Mr. Wofford has prepared for CRP include a monograph on the Iraq-SAMHSA initiative; policy academy planning reports for North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah; and policy academy evaluation reports on returning veterans and their families, and co-occuring disorders. He also prepared meeting summaries for the planning committee mechanisms at which the successful implementation of the 2007 Tribal Policy Academy and the 2008 Policy Academy on Returning Veterans were conceptualized and orchestrated. Prior to joining CRP, Mr. Wofford served as director of development for a national nonprofit association and served 13 years as a senior management consultant at a former Bethesda, Maryland-based Federal contracting firm. He is the recipient of a B.A. degree in political science from Howard University and has undertaken graduate study in research methods at American University.