Partner
California Strategies, LLC 

John Benton is a determined advocate for his clients in the halls and hearing rooms of California's State Capitol and with the state's many regulatory agencies. This same commitment carries over into his development of winning strategies for clients who are pursuing state and local government contracts, procurements and public-private partnerships. Over the course of his career, John has provided strategic consulting and legislative lobbying services for business clients and non-profits on issues relating to the state budget, education, early childhood development, health care, civil litigation, construction, environmental protection, insurance, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, taxation, workers' compensation and occupational safety.

Prior to joining California Strategies, Benton was one of the founding partners of Government Strategies Inc. (GSI), a successful lobbying, government affairs and procurement firm located in Sacramento, California.

Earlier, he served as a regulatory and legislative counsel in the corporate legal departments of three large, national insurers: CNA Insurance Companies, Transamerica Insurance Group and CIGNA. For these industry giants, his work included directing the organization’s legislative and regulatory interests in all 50 states; helping to defeat industry-threatening statewide ballot initiatives; and serving as a chief compliance and enforcement negotiator with state insurance regulators.

Upon graduation from Drake University Law School in 1983, he began his career as a staff attorney in the Iowa Department of Insurance. During his years with the department, he prosecuted agents and companies, handled consumer issues, served as an administrative hearing officer, and advocated departmental positions in the Iowa Legislature.

Benton lives in Sacramento with his wife of 35 years and has three grown children. Over the span of his career, he has participated and chaired a number of local and national philanthropic, school, sports, and professional organizations.

VP, Education
VitalSource

Mike Hale, PhD, is the VP of education for North America for VitalSource. Mike has more than 25 years in the field of education. He has spent the last 13 with VitalSource, helping institutions improve outcomes and affordably create and deliver learning solutions. He is currently responsible for leading VitalSource’s North American higher education initiatives. Prior to joining VitalSource, Mike spent 14 years working to improve K-12 education as a college professor, high school teacher, and director of a successful charter school.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Auburn University and a Master’s and Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Vice President, U.S. Government Relations
Pearson 

Leading a team of legislative and communications professionals, consultants and lobbyists, Melley oversees government relations for Pearson North America. Melley’s team also manages corporate and industry strategic alliances.

Prior to coming to Pearson, Melley was Executive Director of Government and External Relations, overseeing international, federal and state-level government and media relations for ETS.

Before joining ETS in 2001, Melley was a presidential appointee at the United States Department of Commerce, serving in the Senior Executive Service as Deputy Director of Public Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce. There, he was the department spokesman responsible for communications strategy, participated in trade and policy missions to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and served on White House task groups and commissions. Melley also was Chief of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency.

Interim Assistant Vice President, Information
Cal State Fullerton

Willie Peng is the Interim Assistant Vice President for Information Technology/Academic Technology Services. Prior to his appointment, Willie served as Assistant Director, Infrastructure Services. Willie oversees all Academic Technology Services including the Academic Technology Center, Deskside Support, College Support Services, and Classroom Technology.

In addition, Willie has played an integral part in providing strategic direction to senior leadership in technology and leading innovative projects to improve IT operations. Some of the projects Willie has worked on include the campus wide virtual infrastructure, the implementation of the first campus wide network security, the campus wide wireless upgrade, and most recently, the implementation of the Modular Data Center, Titan Direct Access eTextBooks and the TITANium Engagement Dashboard.

Willie holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science with an emphasis in Software Engineering from California State University, Fullerton. Since joining the campus community in 1995, Willie has had many different roles including Senior Network Analyst and Infrastructure Services Lead. In addition, he has intermittently taught various computer science courses at Cal State Fullerton, including Unix Operating Systems, Foundations of Software Engineering and Computer Communications.

Executive Director
Pearson

Matt Stevenson is part of Pearson's strategic partnerships team and is the executive director for Central California, Southern California and Hawaii.  Matt works with institutional leadership to understand their strategic priorities and aligns Pearson solutions to institutional objectives. Since starting with Pearson in January of 2017, Matt's worked with 18 institutions to roll out initiatives focused on affordability and access to Pearson content.  Prior to Pearson, Matt owned his own technology and consulting company. In total, he has 10 years of experience solving problems in the higher education space.