Dr. Odette Piñeiro Caballero has over twenty-five years of experience in community development, enhancing the quality of public, private, and non-traditional education (innovation, policy development, administration) in the United States, Central America, and Puerto Rico. She has designed, implemented, and evaluated programs which stimulate collaborations to promote social justice through formal and informal education of administrators, teachers, and students at all levels. In her earliest professional experience, she enabled children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers east of the Mississippi River to pursue an undergraduate education, many of whom are now leaders in their businesses, organizations, and communities. She later designed and managed programs for Brown University’s Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory, creating new alliances for grant writing and research. After such experiences, she was hired to become lead consultant for various national public and private organizations such as USAID, PARCC, CRH Consulting, Lightspan Corporation, Microsoft, and the Commission on Education of the Puerto Rico Senate, among others. In addition, she has extensive experience volunteering her time in secular, as well as religious organizations, including founding the Centro del Estudiante y Maestro Investigador (Center for Teacher and Student as Researcher) in 2013, a non-profit impacting high school graduation, work-based competencies, and advocacy for adult learners (www.cemipr.org).
In 2009, and after confirmation by the Puerto Rico Senate, Dr. Piñeiro Caballero was appointed as Puerto Rico Secretary of Education, managing the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE), for the next nine months. Before this government experience, in 2008, Piñeiro incorporated Global Education Exchange Opportunities Inc. (GEEO Inc.), to impact social transformation of communities for equal participation as global citizens. Currently, GEEO, Inc. continues to lead work teams hired by various organizations to identify, implement, and evaluate the impact of best practices to improve the quality of education, life, and economic development of individuals and organizations. GEEO, Inc. has earned over $20 million in competitive grants, and has hired highly qualified professionals, over eighty percent female ages 19 to seventy-two. GEEO specializes in innovative professional learning experiences impacting over fifteen thousand educators. As an example, in 2020, GEEO was hired by the PRDE to assess and help develop technological competencies of over twenty-five thousand educators (www.geeopr.app).
GEEO continues to establish strategic alliances and attract investors to expand services and improve high quality learning worldwide. GEEO seeks to improve socioeconomic indicators in low-income communities through improving professional learning and educational outcomes. Piñeiro, who was raised by her widower mother, is a first-generation college graduate who holds a doctorate degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State University, a Master’s in Science Curriculum and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. She has two sons working in the U.S., one in Washington, D.C., and the other in Miami, Florida.