Executive Team
Our strong executive team collectively brings many years of hands-on experience in assessment and technology, along with an innovative approach to technology applications in educational services.
Howard C. Mitzel, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Stella Gibbs
Executive Vice President
Bob Guerin
Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Phoebe Winter, Ph.D.
Vice President for Education Policy
Dr. Mitzel co-founded Pacific Metrics in 2000. He has more than 30 years of experience in the assessment field and is widely known for his innovative work in large-scale assessment. He was co-developer, with Dr. Dan Lewis, of the Bookmark standard-setting procedure, known today as the most widely used procedure in large-scale assessment for setting defensible standards in K–12 programs. Dr. Mitzel has also worked with Dr. Matthew Schulz and the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to design the new standard-setting procedure now adopted for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessment. He sits on several state technical advisory committees and has served as Louisiana’s lead psychometrician for the Graduation Exit Exam since its inception.
Dr. Mitzel actively publishes and presents at assessment-oriented conferences, including the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). His expertise and areas of specialization cover K–12 integrated assessment systems, innovative automated scoring applications, Item Response Theory (IRT)-based calibration, test equating, standard setting, psychometric software development, and assessment policy. He is currently the lead developer of the company’s sophisticated automated scoring system.
Dr. Mitzel holds a Ph.D. in Research Methodology and Quantitative Psychology from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Technology and Public Policy from Washington University.
Ms. Gibbs guides the company’s growth and strategic direction and provides leadership for contract management, proposal generation, and business development activities.
Ms. Gibbs has more than 24 years of experience in large-scale assessment with a focus on assessment design and delivery issues. She has provided leadership and guidance on several statewide assessment programs, worked on the design and implementation of new assessments, and consulted on the transition of existing assessments to an online delivery environment. Ms. Gibbs has expertise in project management, test development, and scoring services. She delivers informative workshops on test administration, item/data reviews, scoring, and standard-setting, drawing from her extensive knowledge of assessment practices along with her past experiences as a science teacher. As a strong communicator with a keen understanding of budgeting and finance, Ms Gibbs offers useful assessment solutions to a wide range of educational stakeholders, committee members, and review processes.
Ms. Gibbs holds an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University, a Masters in Occupational Education (MOE) from the University of New Hampshire, and a Bachelor of Education (Hons.) from the University of Exeter in England.
Mr. Guerin is an experienced financial professional with budget, accounting, treasury, and human resource skills. He provides leadership on resource planning, system implementation, and the integration of technology solutions.
Prior to joining Pacific Metrics, Mr. Guerin spent four years as the Director of Business Integration at the McGraw-Hill Companies where he developed strategic alignments in the assessment industry, led technology-solution teams, and assisted with systems implementation and new product development. Over the past 20 years, he served as Director of Acquisitions for Wirestone, Director of Finance for PrimeQuest International, and Vice President/CFO for both Kennedy AG and Monterey Marketing.
Mr. Guerin earned a BS in Business from the University of San Francisco.
Dr. Winter is a nationally recognized expert in education policy and educational assessment research and development.
She consults with many states on issues related to assessment and accountability programs and has worked with the U.S. Department of Education and numerous states to develop guidelines for the technical aspects of state assessment programs and review assessment systems. Her current research is focused on the comparability of scores from different test formats and is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education.
As a former research director at the Center for the Study of Assessment Validity and Evaluation (C-SAVE) at the University of Maryland, Dr. Winter coordinated projects on assessments for English language learners. Earlier in her career she was a project director with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), worked at the Virginia Department of Education on Virginia’s assessment system, and served as an Educational Programs Specialist in the South Carolina Department of Education’s student and teacher assessment units. She has written a number of books and articles that focus on policy and technical issues in state assessment.
Dr. Winter holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in psychology, with an emphasis on measurement, evaluation, and applied statistics.
