Jack is the Vice President of Policy and Advocacy at the Beacon Center of Tennessee and Beacon Impact. A former teacher and accomplished public servant, Jack comes to Beacon with over a decade of experience in policy, advocacy, and legislative affairs. He has dedicated his career to fighting for policies that allow all Tennessean’s to prosper and achieve their version of the American Dream.
In his role at Beacon, Jack is the chief liaison to members of the governor’s administration and General Assembly and spearheads action on all legislation in which Beacon is involved. In collaboration with the Beacon senior leadership team, he leads research and advocacy work to shape and advance Beacon’s annual policy initiatives.
A native Tennessean, Jack grew up in Memphis and was a member of the 2013 cohort of the Mississippi Teacher Corps, where he taught high school English in the small Delta town of Clarksdale. Jack joined the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) in 2019, where he spent five sessions as a Legislative Liaison for Governor Bill Lee’s Office. During this time, he was part of the state’s rigorous COVID-19 response and worked to pass historic laws on learning loss recovery, early literacy instruction, and student-based funding.
In 2023, Jack worked as the Southeast Regional Advocacy Director for ExcelinEd, where he spearheaded passage of Georgia’s first Science of Reading-based early literacy law. Most recently, he served as the Assistant Commissioner of Policy and Legislative Affairs at TDOE, where he was part of an amazing team effort to pass the Tennessee Education Freedom Scholarship Act, the state’s first universal school choice program.
Jack holds a bachelor’s degree from Millsaps College, a master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Mississippi, and a master’s in Education Policy from Vanderbilt’s Peabody College. He lives in Nashville with his wife Pam and enjoys fly fishing and restoring vintage stereo gear in his spare time.