Dan has over two decades of leadership experience in support of science, the arts, and education. He has served as a university president, a museum director, and nonprofit CEO, and has developed expertise in the areas of strategic planning, nonprofit leadership transitions and reorganizations, planning and implementation of new initiatives, programs, and collaborations, fundraising, and operational/administrative efficiency and effectiveness.

Dan graduated with honors from Beloit College (Beloit, WI) with degrees in anthropology and museum studies and obtained his law degree from Indiana University School of Law. He began his career as an attorney at one of Chicago’s largest law firms before being appointed in house counsel of the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, IL). Dan has also worked as the deputy director of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI) and the Sarasota Art Museum (Sarasota, FL). As a side-project, he helped launch M12, a Colorado-based artists’ collaborative that explores public spaces, rural cultures and landscapes.

Prior to joining Mizzou, Dan served in the interim leadership role at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA) and was the executive director of the Museum of the Southwest (Midland, TX), a nonprofit that operated an art museum, children’s museum, planetarium, and sculpture garden on a 6-acre campus. His experience in education includes serving as the executive vice president and subsequently the 16th president of Lakeland University (Sheboygan, WI), an institution with approximately 3,400 full and part time students across seven Wisconsin locations and a branch campus in Tokyo, Japan.

Dan also has experience as a museum and nonprofit consultant and has served on several nonprofit boards, including Marfa Public Radio, the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce, the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation, ETUDE Charter Schools, Goodside Grocery Cooperative, Bookworm Botanic Gardens, and the University of Texas-Permian Basin College of Business Advisory Council.