About Speaker

Melissa Lareau is a multitalented professional who graduated from Dickinson College with a Bachelor's Degree in English & History, with a minor in Creative Writing. She then completed a Master of Arts in Landscape History at the University of Anglia in Norwich, England. As the Advanced Programs Manager for the school, Melissa is responsible for managing the Advanced Programs Instructors worldwide to ensure an optimum student experience. Her preparation for this has come from management assignments involving community projects, collaboratives of community organizations, being a Designer and Team Trainer for large-scale landscaping projects over six years in the San Francisco and Greater Bay Area of California, being a corporate Program Manager and Strategist, a Regional Manager, and an owner of her own business which provides consulting services for soil improvement using both thermal and vermicomposting methods. While owning her business, Melissa became certified as a Lead-Based Paint Inspector, Risk Assessor Lead-Based Paint Inspector, and Risk Assessor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She also became certified in General Assembly logo Data Analytics- SQL, Tableau, Excel Data Analytics- SQL, Tableau, and Excel General Assembly. All of that experience and knowledge are used daily by Melissa to work cross-functionally with all the SFWS departments to ensure Instructor load-balancing, proactive recruitment, and staff training occur on a timely basis to provide SFWS students with the best possible training product.