Name:	Mariko Lockhart
	Month:	March 2003
	School:	Yale '80; NYU '93
	Degree:	BA in Art; Masters in Public Administration
	Company:	Communities In Schools of New Jersey, Inc
	Title:	President & State Director

As State Director of Communities In Schools of New Jersey, Inc. (CISNJ), Mariko Lockhart is responsible for the strategic planning and organizational management of CISNJ, Inc. including the development of state resources and partnerships to support local Communities In Schools operations. The mission of Communities In Schools of New Jersey is to champion the connection of needed community resources with schools to help young people successfully learn, stay in school and prepare for life. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from serving 2,000 children in four cities to more than 14,000 children in nine disadvantaged New Jersey communities. This post is the latest step in a career dedicated to the advancement of youth services and education.

Ms. Lockhart’s career began in 1981 in Bluefields, Nicaragua, where she developed and implemented bi-lingual community education materials for government programs in the areas of health, elections and education. She also supervised English literacy instruction for the Nicaraguan government’s Literacy Campaign in Native languages. In 1985, Ms. Lockhart’s work brought her to the Center for International Communication in Managua, Nicaragua. As Deputy Director, she produced and translated communication materials on social and economic issues for distribution to Nicaraguan governmental departments and international delegations.

In 1987, Ms. Lockhart returned stateside to New Jersey, where she served for three years as Legislative Monitor for the City of Jersey City’s Department of Housing and Economic Development. Following that, in 1990, Ms Lockhart returned to the education field at Steven Cooperative School in Hoboken, where she designed and taught that school’s Spanish language program.

Her commitment to fostering meaningful educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth deepened while serving as a consultant at the READY Foundation, a long range integrated services educational program serving Newark children. Other consulting engagements included research on youth entrepreneur programs, One to One/NJ, a school based mentoring program operating in Newark public schools.

In 1994, Ms. Lockhart was appointed Associate Director for Education & Youth at Newark Fighting Back Partnership (NFBP), a community initiative established by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation directed at reducing substance abuse in targeted neighborhoods. Her work at NFBP aimed at enhancing educational and life opportunities for Newark children as a strategy addressing the root causes of substance abuse. During her tenure at NFBP, Ms. Lockhart directed the Renaissance Project at Central High School, a private/public, break-the-mold initiative created to transform Newark’s Central High School by restructuring the school’s administration and curricula, as well as establishing partnerships with institutions of higher learning, community based organizations and the business community. Under her direction, The Renaissance Project successfully leveraged several million dollars of in-kind and cash donations to provide programs and services for the students and faculty at Central High School including team mentoring, stress management, and summer internship opportunities.

While at NFBP, Lockhart was appointed Chair of the Newark Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community Education Task Force. In that capacity, she was a key figure in managing a broad-based city-wide public planning effort to establish educational goals for the city of Newark's successful application for federal designation as an Enterprise Community.

Ms. Lockhart currently serves on several Northern New Jersey boards, including the Newark Workforce Investment Board and the Montclair Civil Rights Commission, for which she serves as Chairperson. Mariko is a member of Leadership New Jersey Class 2002.

Ms. Lockhart received a Masters of Public Administration from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service a Bachelor of Art degree from Yale University. She resides in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband César and their two children.