Lee Umphrey serves as MƒA's Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs. In addition, Lee was previously Interim Executive Director and Interim Director of the New York program at MƒA. He is primarily responsible for raising the organization’s national profile, creating strategic partnerships and coordinating the effort to create and pass national legislation using the MƒA model. Lee orchestrated the process to include an MƒA amendment in the the America COMPETES ACT, which creates teaching Fellowships within the National Science Foundation and became public law in 2007.
With over two decades of communications and government relations experience, Lee previously acted as Director of Communication and Spokesperson for Governor John Baldacci of Maine. He has held government positions in Maine with the City of Bangor and in Washington, DC with United States Senator Claiborne Pell and the Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service. Lee was also a political advocate and consultant to the Maine Newspaper Group, a consortium of Maine’s seven daily newspapers.
Lee has extensive education and job training experience, having served for nine years as the Director of Community and Government Relations for the Training and Development Corporation in Maine and nationally. During this time, he managed a three-county Summer Youth Employment and Education Program and a state-wide Migrant Seasonal Farm worker educational program, while providing community relations support for Job Corps Centers in three states. In 1996, under the auspices of US Senator George Mitchell and the US Department of State, Lee played a primary role organizing a Workforce Development Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland to share best US education and training practices with educators and advocates from Northern Ireland. This conference resulted in building new relationships and the replication of several new projects in Belfast and the US.
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