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Dr. Joseph J. Bannon, Sr. is the past-President and founder of Management Learning Laboratories, and is the former Head of the Department of Leisure Studies at the University of Illinois. Prior to serving as Department Head, Dr. Bannon was Chief of the Office of Recreation and Park Resources (ORPR) at the University of Illinois. As Chief of ORPR, Dr. Bannon developed and pioneered the use of needs assessment studies for the evaluation and planning of community parks and leisure services. Before joining the University of Illinois faculty, Dr. Bannon served as Superintendent of Recreation in Leonia, New Jersey and in Topeka, Kansas. He currently serves as Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois.
Dr. Bannon is an internationally recognized consultant in the field of parks, recreation and leisure. During the past twenty years, he has developed and conducted park and recreation studies in over seventy communities throughout the United States and in Europe. He has also assisted several park and recreation agencies in China, Korea and Japan. Most recently, Dr. Bannon has been responsible for the direction and completion of planning studies for the following agencies: The United States Air Force, Military Airlift Command; Evanston, Illinois Recreation Department; Knoxville, Tennessee Bureau of Parks and Recreation; Schaumburg, Illinois Park District; Charleston County South Carolina Park and Recreation Commission; Oregon, Illinois Park District; Hartford, Connecticut Department of Parks and Recreation; McHenry, Illinois Recreation Department; Des Moines, Iowa Park and Recreation Department; Downers Grove, Illinois Park District; and the Kansas City, Missouri Department of Parks, Recreation and Boulevards; and the Homewood-Flossmoor, Illinois Park District.
Dr. Bannon is one of the founding editors of The Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, which has become a primary source for the dissemination of applied research in the leisure field. He is also publisher and editor of Management Strategy, a popular publication for leisure service practitioners. Dr. Bannon's most recent research is a comprehensive survey of management behavior of park and recreation executives in the United States. Two of his books, Problem Solving in Recreation and Parks and Leisure Resources: Its Comprehensive Planning, are pioneer efforts in the leisure field and are used by practitioners and academics all over the United States and abroad.
In recognition of his outstanding career, Dr. Bannon has received the Distinguished Fellow Award from the American Park and Recreation Society and the Society of Professional Recreation Educators. He also received the National Distinguished Professional Award from the National Recreation and Park Association. Most recently, Dr. Bannon was selected for the J.B. Nash Scholar Award by the American Association for Leisure and Recreation. In 1987, he received the National Recreation and Park Association's Literary Award.
Ananda Mitra, Ph.D., is a national specialist in needs assessment. Dr. Mitra's professional career includes his appointment as the Head of the Sampling Section of the Survey Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he worked for five years. He then moved to Wake Forest University to be a member of the faculty in the Department of Communication where he teaches courses in research methodology.
He has worked in the area of surveys and needs assessment for nearly a decade helping develop methods of sampling and data collection that are now being used by the US Census Bureau. In addition to his work in the area of recreation needs assessment, his experience spans surveying of the homeless in Chicago to assessing the needs of the high technology employers of Du Page County in Illinois. He has also consulted with the Americorps in Des Moines, IA, the Franklin County Prevention Institute of Ohio, the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Department of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and US Air Force Military Airlift Command.
He is an active scholar and has published on survey and evaluation methodology in journals such as Evaluation Practice and Evaluation and Program Planning. He is also the lead author of the only comprehensive book on recreation needs assessment, Research Methods in Parks, Recreation and Leisure Services published by Sagamore Publications and available through Amazon book stores.
Dr.Swati Basu serves as the Manager of Operations for MLL, administering all the printing, mailing and the operational work for various MLL projects. She has a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has had several years of experience in managing research laboratories at the University.
Michelle Dressen has a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL. As the former Art Director for Sagamore Publishing, a sister organization of MLL, she was responsible for all aspects of design, including the preparation of camera-ready layout of books, book covers, catalogs, promotional material, and questionnaires. She works with the Internet and has extensive computer experience in the use of desktop publishing software, as well as experience in data entry and coding of survey data. Ms. Dressen is responsible for the data entry and the design of all MLL questionnaires and reports.
Stefne Lenzmeier is responsible for the analysis of the survey data and the co-authoring of the final reports. She has written numerous Needs Assessment reports, which are comprised of the data from the Needs Assessment survey instruments as well as narrative analyses of the results and suggestions for the public agencies. She also brings to the project extensive experience in focus group administration and the conduct of in-depth personal interviews.
Stefne has also participated in data analysis for and evaluation of a campus-wide computerization initiative at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. Her work included survey coordination and data analysis, as well as preparing presentations about the annual findings of the longitudinal study to various academic and administrative personnel. Additionally, Stefne's research in human communication has focused on the evaluation and analysis of linguistic differences in individuals' communication styles.
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