Susan Heegaard

Susan Heegaard has been a Wallin Education Partners board member since 2015.  She currently serves on the Governance Committee.

Susan has spent much of her professional career in the education space. Since November 2018, she has been the president of the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), a legislatively-created agreement among the 12 Midwestern census region states to work together to further higher education within the region.  The Compact aims to build higher education’s capacity to better serve individuals, institutions, and states by leveraging the region’s resources, expertise, ideas, and experiences through multi-state: Convening, Research, Programs, and Contracts.

She works closely with the Compact’s 60-member commission in partnership with institution and system leaders as well as policymakers. Heegaard served on MHEC’s Commission from 2004-2009, during her time as commissioner of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. From 2013-2018, she worked as a senior consultant with HCM Strategists, a public policy firm, primarily with the Lumina Foundation Strategy Labs, connecting state and system leaders with effective approaches aimed at improved postsecondary education approaches and outcomes. She was also a vice president and education team leader for the St. Paul based Bush Foundation.
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Heegaard has guided policy under two governors and a U.S. senator, worked for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the Minnesota Private College Council, the Minnesota Department of Education as well as the state’s Planning Agency. She has been a board member of the Minnesota Land Trust, The Minnesota Humanities Center and Serve Minnesota. She holds a law degree from Mitchell Hamline College of Law and a bachelor's in economics and government from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.  She and her family live in St. Paul.

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Susan Heegaard serves on the Board of Trustees