Dr. Allen Zeman has deep roots in our community. He and his family, including three Broward County school students, reside in Fort Lauderdale. He is the son of a Broward County School Psychologist and a Psychology Professor, was raised in Broward County, attended Broward County Schools from K-12th grade, and then attended Florida State University, where he earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Econometrics. He also served as a member of the FSU Economics faculty. For five years, he was the Chairman of the Fort Lauderdale Education Advisory Board.
In his career serving our nation, Dr. Zeman was on the Department of Defense School Board for eight years. He was forward deployed on Navy ships as a civilian employee for four years and worked for a year in Baghdad as the Chief Economist for the Reconstruction of Iraq.
Currently, Dr. Zeman is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the Center for Human Capital Innovation, a team that works with governmental agencies and commercial organizations to bring innovative solutions in executive coaching, human capital consulting, leader development, and human capital analytics. For the lay audience: Dr. Zeman has made a career and built a company with the goal of maximizing human potential.
In our conversations with Dr. Zeman, we were impressed by his high energy level, his strong desire to work collaboratively, and his emphasis on the importance of the teacher in the classroom in producing positive education results. He has a clear understanding of the intent of equity and the need to properly apply resources where they are most needed to raise academic achievement among our most vulnerable students. Further, he has the presence of that comes with having been a senior executive for the past 25 years.
Dr. Zeman’s personal connection to human tragedy gives us assurance that he intimately understands that nothing else matters if our children, teachers, and co-workers don’t feel safe in our schools. That is the core mission of CCOBC. Dr. Zeman was in the Pentagon and survived the terrorist attack on 9/11 that took the lives of 42 of his close friends and immediate Navy colleagues. He’s been to the funerals, he’s cried those tears, and he’s felt the pain of the victims. He gets it.
What we found most intriguing was that Dr. Zeman actively sought our endorsement. The meteoric rise of his campaign suggests that he is well-organized, has a solid circle of community support, and doesn’t need the endorsement of our group to win this election. In the early days of this group, as a means to avoid accountability, we were unfairly maligned by the previous administration. Dr. Zeman reached out to us, which tells us that our concerns are more important than mischaracterizations by individuals who fear transparency and accountability.
And lastly, Dr. Zeman has a clear and articulate vision of creating a great school district. He possesses the communication and executive leadership skills to confidently articulate this vision to the greater Broward community, which is fundamental to inspiring purposeful action that will achieve worthwhile goals. As Dr. Zeman says, “a vision without action is just a hallucination”. ** **He also knows that schools are the bedrock upon which great communities are built. For far too long, constrained by the narrow prisms of politics and self-interest, we have failed as voters to elect and appoint individuals who possess the characteristics and virtues of great leaders. The current state of Broward County Public Schools—poorly managed facilities, decreasing enrollment, fiscal stress, and declining student achievement—is merely a reflection of our failure as voters.
In electing Dr. Allen Zeman, voters have an extraordinary opportunity to do something you don’t see much of in Broward County, something great leaders do—take responsibility for failure, and then take action to do something about it.
**Join us to elect Dr. Allen Zeman for Broward School Board, District 8. **
Further endorsements will be forthcoming as we converse with and meet the candidates from other districts. We ask that our members please share CCOBC endorsements.
— with Adam Herman and John Daly Sr.