Professor Joseph Pettiford serves now as an Associate Vice President of Human Resources, Howard Community College, Columbia, MD. He has served in various Human Resource executive roles to include national non-profits, private and publicly-traded companies and a 184,000-employee Fortune 32 technology company. In these roles, Prof. Pettiford has led mergers & acquisitions, compensation studies, and the implementation of performance and learning management systems. More recently, Prof. Pettiford served as the Chief Human Resources Officer for Jefferson County Schools, located in Charles Town, West Virginia, where he led the first and only human resources department in the state to use predictive analytics in hiring high-impact teachers and service employees. Prof. Pettiford has been active writing and speaking on the national scene advocating for the use of technology in education and creating customer-centric human resource functions for organizations and their employees. Since 2006, Prof. Pettiford has served as an adjunct professor in higher education at various universities where he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in HR, business and labor relations. Honors have included winning Teacher of the Year, Teacher of the Quarter and numerous Provost Awards of recognition. An alumnus of the University System of Maryland, Pettiford possesses advanced degrees in business (MBA) and human resources (MS) and is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) through the HR Certification Institute (HRCI), a SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) and an American Association of School Personnel Administrators (AASPA) Professional Human Capital Leader in Education (pHCLE). He is also an ISO 9000 Certified Internal Auditor.