Project Director, EPIC
Tom Lent has been with TRG since October of 2015, where he serves as the Project Director for EPIC. EPIC works with the USAID Education Sector – through strategies of organizational effectiveness, professional development, knowledge management and communications – to better reach education strategy goals. He has 45 years of facilitation experience in 7 regions in different roles: leadership and management, strategic planning and organizational development, grant-making, capacity development of local organizations, and advising networks and movements. Tom has worked in diverse but related themes: community-based integrated development, formal and non-formal education, participatory management and leadership, peace building and conflict transformation, gender, relief and emergencies, education sector reform, advocacy and policy reform, the environment, micro-finance, and child and youth rights, protection and participation. He has lived and worked in Guatemala, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan and supported projects in more than 45 countries including Zambia, Honduras, Nepal, Norway, The Netherlands, Thailand, Nicaragua, Mexico, and the West Bank/Gaza.
Tom’s professional highlights include co-founding the Guatemalan Save the Children; co-founding the Central American Learning Circle on the rights of children in a local context; co-designing and facilitation of a 3 year and 10 country participatory action research project on early childhood development; co-designing and co-facilitation of children and youth participation in the first ever UN General Assembly Special Session on Children; and co-founding the Social Movement for Children in Guatemala. He was also the Project Director for a USAID funded Education Reform Project in Zambia and co-designed and co-facilitated a blended learning strategy on decentralization and education quality with 6 African countries for the World Bank Institute. Tom co-teaches two graduate courses a year at the American University. He has a BA and MA in International Relations from the School of International Service at the American University. In his spare time, Tom enjoys spending time with his 3 “kids” and 5 grandkids while trail hiking or biking.