Reach for College! Staff

Jonathan B. Williams is Executive Director of Reach for College!

Jonathan has over 25 years of professional experience blending the education, government and non-profit sectors. Throughout his career, Jonathan has specialized in creating access to mainstream opportunities for under-resourced youth and adult populations. His work in higher education and college access includes serving as the Director of Programs at Heads Up of Washington, DC, a college admission professional at Oberlin College, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College and a high school college counselor, teacher and coach.

Prior to joining Reach for College!, Jonathan was the President of JWA Strategies, a management consulting firm specializing in the design and development of diversity initiatives for community-based and non-profit organizations. Some of his work includes the University of Missouri Diversity Education Program, “Getting Together,” and the inaugural NASCAR Diversity Internship Program.

He served as Director of Corporate Relations for The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that promotes volunteering and service. Under his strategic leadership, the Corporation experienced record-breaking gains in volunteer and donor participation in high profile programs such as the Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, AmeriCorps Week, the AmeriCorps Diversity Recruitment Program and the Corporate Pro Bono Summit.

Jonathan is a graduate of Dartmouth College and holds a graduate degree from The University of Maryland at College Park.

Kenneth Parker—Program Director

Kenneth Parker oversees the implementation of the Reach for College! curriculum in partnering schools, provides support to teachers, facilitates classroom visits, prepares and delivers presentations, maintains and updates the scholarship website, and revisits with RFC! graduates.

Prior to joining the Reach for College! team, Kenneth worked as an educator in the District of Columbia Public Schools for sixteen years. His career began in 1994 when Kenneth joined nationally recognized Teach for America and committed to teach in a low-income community for two years. Deeply dedicated to educating underserved students, he taught at Adelaide Davis Elementary for seven years before deciding to enter administration. His appointment in 2001 to the position of Assistant Principal and in 2004 to the position of Principal of Stephen Elliot Kramer Middle School in Southeast, Washington, DC, allowed him to pursue his life-long goal of school leadership.

The propelling influence for Kenneth joining the Reach for College! team was his personal experience as a first-generation college student and his professional experiences educating youth from low income communities. He believes that his service to many of his former students have prepared him to further the mission of providing support for disadvantaged students in pursuit of a post secondary education.

Kenneth is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College in Farmville, Virginia where he was featured in its publication “For the Record: A Series on Alum in Education”. He holds a masters degree from Cambridge College in Boston, Massachusetts and he is currently pursuing his doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from NOVA Southeastern University in Florida.

Brenda C. Siler – Director of Marketing and Communications

Brenda Claire Siler has distinguished herself as a visionary strategic communicator with expertise as a “change agent” inside well-known organizations that include United Way, the American Red Cross, AARP, the Council on Competitiveness, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and UNCF-the United Negro College Fund. In her role with these organizations, Brenda has implemented successful strategies resulting in global media coverage; internationally honored public awareness campaigns, and collaborative initiatives with internal and external partners. During her tenure at UNCF, Brenda led the team responsible for re-branding the nation’s largest minority scholarship organization around the iconic tagline, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Prior to joining RFC!, Brenda was head of the consultancy Best Communication Strategies.  She advised national associations and nonprofits on communication strategy and developed tools such as message statements, web content, fact sheets, FAQs, brochures and news releases. In her consulting role, Brenda worked with the American Nurses Association, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the Center for Student Opportunity and ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). 

Brenda is a past chairwoman for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the only US-based international membership association for corporate communicators that has 80 chapters and 16,000 members worldwide. She is a respected PR industry speaker and author. Brenda has been recognized as one of the Top 10 African Americans in Public Relations by PR Week and was honored by her alma mater Spelman College with the Tiffany & Co./Spelman College Alumnae Achievement Award.