Brian Lekander is the Program Manager of Star Schools, a K–12 distance education initiative in the US Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement. Although Brian is relatively new to Star Schools, he previously spent seventeen years in the Department’s Office of Postsecondary Education. He served as the lead program officer for educational technology with the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE); as program coordinator of FIPSE’s Comprehensive Program; and as the first program coordinator of the Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP), which supported Internet distance education at the college/university level. Prior to joining Star Schools, Brian spent two years in Chicago, first serving for a semester as a distance education consultant at North Park University, and then as Executive Director of Academic Partnerships for the district office of the City Colleges of Chicago.