Biographies
Meet Our Team
Carole Richards
President & CEO, Author of Richards Learning Systems®
President Carole Richards has been dedicated to improving literacy from her first teaching job in the Cleveland Public Schools. Since then, Carole formed North Coast Education Services in 1985 in her dining room with a tiny $200 bank roll. Now, more than 30 years later, the company has become an education force in Ohio and has expanded tremendously. North Coast Education Services now has more than 300 degreed, professional, and trained tutors. It provides in-home tutoring and other services through seven Northeast Ohio counties and beyond.
Carole has been recognized as an education innovator in developing skills for students with special learning needs and other struggling learners. She presents teacher training in-service programs and workshops featuring Richards Learning Systems® (RLS) and other topics. She is a literacy consultant to parents and schools.
Richards Learning Systems® was written by Carole over a two to three year period and refined over two decades. It is a systematic and multi-sensory approach to language arts, counts many student successes, and is effective with children and adults. Research from the RLS programs used in the Cleveland Public Schools and other districts document dramatic and successful reading improvement among children.
Statistical data about RLS developed by Case Western Reserve University and other research organizations showed dramatic skills improvement among “at risk” students. The program has been introduced to numerous schools and districts, including the special education teachers and students in the Euclid City Schools — the fifth largest urban school in Ohio.
In 1992, Carole formed the not-for-profit Creative Education Institute (CEI). Its mission is to affect change through improved literacy. CEI developed and ran the successful A to Z Welfare to Work Program in Cuyahoga County for nearly five years. Currently, CEI runs the Academic Fun & Fitness Camp for six weeks each summer. The camp includes reading, math, theater arts, hands-on science, art therapy, and many other activities. This day camp is for children with learning disabilities and is funded by school districts and prominent Cleveland-area foundations.
A graduate of Miami University of Ohio, Carole held teaching positions in several Cleveland-area schools. She garnered extensive teaching experience in the classroom working with “at risk” students. She is active in several service organizations. Carole and her husband live in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, with a daughter in Connecticut.
John Kusik
Vice President & COO
In addition to his position as Chief Operating Officer of RLS, John is the Director of Marketing for North Coast Education Services. His broad business experience as a business owner and consultant; account for his excellent “feel” for evaluating marketing strategies and tactics. John also is an active member of civic and cultural organizations.
As founder and principle of Focus Communications, a marketing consulting firm that managed unusual projects for large and small regional and national companies, John successfully managed outside-the-box projects. Previously, John was president and founder of the International Publishing Group, publishers of monthly, quarterly and annual health care publications. Prior activities include managing a regional management consulting firm.
John has appeared as a guest speaker for many organizations, and has been interviewed on numerous radio and television programs as a small business expert. He was also the host of a popular business radio program, and co-authored several business books.
John has always been active in the community and has served on many local and national service organization boards. He is a past-president and board chair of Sales & Marketing Executives of Cleveland and is currently a member of the Small Business Council of the United States Chamber of Commerce. And he is board chair of the non-profit Creative Education Institute. He has actively supported CEI since its inception.
John is past-Vice President of the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, John and his wife live in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
Larry Bartell
CPA, PFS, Juris Doctorate, CFO
As the Richards Learning Systems®CFO, Larry Bartell has broad experience in accounting. He has been practicing for more than 40 years as a certified public accountant. Prior to joining Susten, Bartell, Waldman & Fitzgerald, Ltd, in 1993, he was a tax partner in an international accounting firm.
He is a 1968 cum laude graduate of Miami University, with a Bachelor of Science degree and is a certified public accountant in the State of Ohio. In addition, Larry holds the personal financial specialist (PFS) designation from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is also a cum laude graduate of Cleveland State University Law School with a Juris Doctor degree and is a practicing attorney in the State of Ohio.
His experience includes a position formerly with KPMG Peat Marwick as a tax partner (1979-1993), for which his duties included partner-in-charge of the personal financial planning practice and a designated mergers and acquisitions tax partner.
Larry is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants, the Cleveland Society of Estate Analysts, and the Estate Planning Council of Cleveland.
Larry has actively supported CEI for seventeen years.
Sharon Miles
Manager Field Projects
Sharon Miles has a wealth of experience managing students and teachers in a wide variety of programs. Her incredible people and organization skills have made her a perfect fit as on-site camp director for the Academic Fun & Fitness Camp offered by the Creative Education Institute. In this role, she manages 60 campers with learning differences, and 15 to 20 staff. She also serves as field projects manager for Richards Learning Systems® (RLS).
Sharon has more than 30 years teaching experience. She has worked for the Creative Education Institute and North Coast Education Services since her retirement from the classroom in 2005. She has a master’s degree in education administration.
In addition to tutoring, Sharon has: managed a 60-plus student after-school program at Euclid Central Middle School; supervised an RLS teacher training program for a 400-student charter school, with 8 tutors and 15 classroom teachers; provided demonstration teaching of RLS to all classes in grades K-6 in a charter school; introduced teachers, principals, psychologists and other administrators to the many services offered by North Coast Education Services and the Academic Fun & Fitness Camp.
Sharon will support teachers in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District project during its first two years. She has been a CEI manager for nine years.
Questions?
Contact Carole Richards directly!