Mark Allan Schultz, who has spent much of his career working in vocational rehabilitation, was nominated March 19, 2018, to lead the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the Department of Education. The agency works to improve the lives of children and adults afflicted by disabilities. Its main efforts revolve around establishing and maintaining research and development programs through government grants at the state and regional levels.

Schultz is from Seward, Nebraska, and attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he earned a B.S. in architectural studies in 1979, in doing so becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college. He later earned a master’s in public administration from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 1995.

Schultz spent 20 years as director of the Assistive Technology Partnership, a Nebraska agency that helps the disabled use technology to improve their lives. Schultz also was a barrier-free design specialist for the League of Human Dignity.

Schultz was with Nebraska Vocational Rehabilitation beginning in 2008, first as associate director and since October 2009 as director. More recently, he was named deputy commissioner in the Nebraska Department of Education.

He is a past president of the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Schultz and his wife, Barbara, have several dogs.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Nebraska Education Official Named to Federal Post (Lincoln Journal Star)

Official Announcement