Born in New Orleans, Ryan has a deep loyalty to this city. For more than twenty years, Ryan's professional efforts have been guided by the goal of helping transform our city’s neighborhoods into healthy communities by improving quality access to education, jobs, transit, and housing for all. After seeing the destruction from Hurricane Katrina firsthand, Ryan immediately knew he wanted to be part of the solution as the city recovered. During this time, he has worked closely with a wide range of New Orleans youth, employers and training providers, as a senior manager for college and career readiness programs, school transformation facilitator and as a classroom teacher.
Most recently, Ryan led the workforce development functions of the City of New Orleans YouthWorks program. Prior to serving as the leader of the city's YouthWorks program, Ryan served as the Senior Manager for the Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program at Tulane University and as the Louisiana Field Manager of the Johns Hopkins Diplomas Now dropout prevention program, where he partnered with school and district leaders in New Orleans and Baton Rouge to implement comprehensive high school reform initiatives, including career academies, data-driven student success systems that used early-warning indicators to significantly improve graduation outcomes, and instructional models that accelerated student achievement and career readiness.
Ryan lives with his wife and two children, Lucinda and Wes, in the Fairgrounds neighborhood of New Orleans.