The Heald story for me, is a good one. The college was founded in San Francisco, California, by Edward Payson Heald, on August 8, 1863, and known for many years as "Heald's Business College". I joined the college in 2005, when it was a non-profit. The school was losing money, particularly from a poor investment in an ERP system. But the education itself was very good and more than 10,000 students a year attended it.

I led a team to replace the bad systems and worked with the senior management team to turn the school around. We launched an online campus, got the school through re-accreditation, got it out of financial trouble, and secured matriculation agreements with the Cal State System. I decided to leave when the board of trustees decided to make it a for-profit school.

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A footnote: Unfortunately, the Heald story itself, is a very sad one. The year I left (2007), the then non-profit institution was acquired by a private investor group and turned into a for-profit college. Heald closed their doors for good when Corinthian Colleges shuttered all of their campuses on April 27, 2015.