Chief Executive Officer
David W. Saba serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Laying the Foundation. Dave came to LTF to build the research base demonstrating LTF effectiveness, innovate by taking the LTF teacher training program online and provide a long term strategy for success. In a short period of time LTF has been able to create a vision for success for LTF which will positively impact well over 100,000 students in the upcoming years. The LTF message of increased college access is already rapidly expanding into more than 14 states.
Dave previously served as Chief Executive Officer of the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) until March 2010. Dave was directly responsible for dramatically increasing the teacher recruitment efforts at ABCTE, having grown enrollments by over 300% and driving the organization to recruit over 9,500 potential teachers into its rigorous, self-paced online teaching certification program, while issuing more than 1,900 certifications to-date. The ABCTE program is now accepted in nine states, due to the outreach efforts of Dave and his team, and their work with legislators and state education administrators throughout the country.
Dave motivated the ABCTE team to create new opportunities to assist school districts in recruiting, certifying, and supporting excellent teachers essential for student success. Dave also led the organization to a financial position where ongoing operations continue without the need to request an extension of the initial government funds used to create the organization, a feat that is quite rare in the world of non-profits and almost unheard of in education. Prior to serving as CEO, Dave served as ABCTE’s Vice President of Development and Evaluation and was responsible for candidate recruitment, all test development, program evaluation, new program development and candidate resource development.
Before joining ABCTE, Dave served as the Mid Atlantic Regional Director for Kaplan Test Prep. He was able to dramatically improve the performance of the region through aggressive teacher recruitment and training, site expansion, strategic planning and marketing. Under his leadership, the region created partnerships with multiple school systems to deliver SAT Preparation and SES services. He implemented the first staff training program for the region and created the first large scale marketing plans. He was directly responsible for opening four new centers in his region, setting up a significant competitive advantage for Kaplan.
Dave is a Naval Academy graduate who served as a helicopter pilot in the Navy for 8 years and was awarded both the Battle E and Navy Achievement Medals. He completed his master’s degree in Engineering Management from the University of South Florida. He lives in Texas with his wife and two college-aged daughters.