User:BtaylorPA/sandbox

Joe Watkins, a Philadelphia-based Republican MSNBC, CNBC and Al Jazeera. media analyst, is the Senior Vice President of External Affairs of ElectedFace, Inc., a company that operates a social-media platform launched in early 2016. ElectedFace is a centralized social-media platform that connects elected officials to constituents, supporters and followers; colleges and universities to students, faculties, alumni and families; businesses to employees, customers and target markets; faith-based organizations to the faithful; and celebrities to fans and followers.

Watkins is pastor of the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. He has been married to Stephanie Watkins Taylor since 1975. They have three children.

A former White House aide under President George H.W. Bush and Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania, Watkins served as Chief Recovery Officer and then Receiver of the Chester Upland School District from August 2012 through September 2015. During that time he developed and was implementing a financial and academic recovery plan.

Previously he was chairman of Students First PAC of the Students First Corporation, a Pennsylvania statewide not-for-profit organization that promotes school choice and opportunity scholarships. He was featured in a documentary about the PAC’s work which can be seen at Students First. He was a director of Hill Solutions, LLC, a lobbying and consulting firm. He also was one of three partners and the chief marketing officer of MDL Capital, which managed nearly $2 billion in pension funds for clients such as Boeing, SEPTA, and the City of Baltimore.

Education
Watkins attended Middlesex School and previously served on their Board as a Trustee. He received his undergraduate degree in 1975 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an editorial cartoonist for The Daily Pennsylvanian, a resident advisor, and played on the freshman basketball and varsity track teams. Watkins later received his Masters Degree in Christian Education from the Princeton Theological Seminary.

Politics and recognition
Watkins volunteered for then-Congressman (and future Vice President) Dan Quayle's senatorial campaign in Indiana and was offered a position in Quayle’s Senate staff. While working as an aide for Quayle, Ebony chose him as one of the Fifty Young Leaders of the Future in September 1983. From 1986-1989 Watkins exceeded the fundraising mandate of $5 million for minority permanence by raising more than $10 million as the Assistant to the President of the University of Pennsylvania.

Later, when Quayle ran for vice president with George H. W. Bush in 1988, Watkins worked on the Bush-Quayle election campaign, served in the Bush transition team, and later acted as associate director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White House from 1989 to 1999. In 1994, Watkins announced his candidacy for the Republican party primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by Harris Wofford (D-Pa.). He lost in the primary to Rick Santorum, but he endorsed the Republican nominee for the general election. Watkins gave the invocation on the opening day of the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2008, Watkins spoke on Thursday, August 4 to the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

During 2009-2010 he was a full-time candidate for statewide office as Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania in the Republican Primary.

Public appearances and media experience
From 2004-2005, Watkins was a guest host on CNN's CrossfireSince 2006 Watkins appears on air as a political analyst for MSNBC, CNBC, NBC, the NBC networks and as a presenter's friend for Al Jazeera English.He appeared as a guest on The Tyra Banks Show and was a guest host on TBN’s Praise the Lord. He was also the chairman of Students First, a non partisan, political action committee dedicated to supporting Pennsylvania office holders and candidates who support education reform legislation such as "money follows the child" programs like Opportunity Scholarships and Education Improvement Tax Credits (EITC); expansion of charter, cyber and magnet schools; and merit pay for teachers.

He was host of the Joe Watkins Show, an on-air call-in show Saturday mornings on The Big Talker 1210 WPHT, Bala Cynwyd, PA, from 2004-2006 and as a political analyst was a regular weekly commentator on Political Corner with Juan Williams on National Public Radio, Washington DC, from 2005-2009.

CUSD involvement
PA Education Secretary Ron Tomalis named Joe Watkins as chief recovery officer of the Chester Upland School District of Delaware County, PA, on August 19, 2012. Tomalis expressed his confidence in Watkins, saying, “Joe is a qualified individual who has the ability to assist the Chester Upland School District with long-term financial stability, as well as ensuring the district’s students continue to have access to quality academic programs." Watkins unveiled a “radical and bold” financial and academic recovery plan that included school closures (only three of the district’s schools had an occupancy rate higher than 50 percent) and staff cuts, but also hinged on the district’s ability to regain students lost to charter and cyber charter schools. To accomplish this, Watkins restored art and music programs to the district and established various service programs largely by soliciting private donations and creating an endowment.

Watkins was appointed by Delaware County, PA, Court of Common Pleas Judge Chad F. Kenney as the Chester Upland School District Receiver on December 14, 2012, and he remained at the helm of the school district through September of 2015, when he accepted the post of Senior Vice President of External Affairs for ElectedFace.

Leading External Affairs at ElectedFace
In September of 2015, Watkins began leading External Affairs at ElectedFace as the company’s founder and CEO Richard Glanton, a Princeton-based entrepreneur, was putting the finishing touches to what he intended to be a game-changing social media platform. ElectedFace has been described as the next generation of media interactivity, designed to empower everyone to give voice to their ideas, opinions and concerns and to help them promote the things they care about through collective voices, calls and conferences, instant messaging and content creation and by sharing via article, debate, event, petition, poll, survey, image and video posts.

“Richard Glanton has come up with the next big thing. ElectedFace changes the landscape for social media because the multifaceted platform makes it so easy for users to communicate with each other and stay abreast of the news,” Watkins said.