John Baird

Division President, Enrollment Management
Cedar Rapids, IA
john.baird@ruffalocody.com

John has three decades of experience in admissions and enrollment management. The first half of his career was spent in college admissions, and since 1996 he has worked with several hundred institutions, large and small, state and private, in his role at RuffaloCODY.

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1982, John joined the admissions staff at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, WI. While there he recruited and managed the student telecounseling effort. After two years, John accepted a position at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI as an Associate Director of Admissions. In addition to recruiting, he refined the student telecounseling effort, developed an alumni recruitment program, and enhanced the recruitment database management capabilities.

In 1989, John was promoted to Director of Admissions at Aquinas and for the next five years he managed all operational aspects of their recruitment. (John will tell you this is the period of time he lost most of his hair!) During this period John played a key role on the implementation team for the college’s new database, Colleague, and was among the first in the industry to supply his staff with laptops. In 1994, the position of Associate Dean of Admissions was created for John, and in this capacity he concentrated on new strategic initiatives to increase enrollment. This included international recruitment and advising, continuing education recruitment, heading up the retention effort on campus, and implementing Telequalification, financial aid leveraging, and geodemography.

With an interest in moving his family back to his childhood home in eastern Iowa, John accepted a position at RuffaloCODY in 1996. Since that time, John has built RuffaloCODY into an industry leader in the field of enrollment management, providing institutions strategic and practical solutions in most effectively identifying, targeting, and communicating with their right students at every stage of the recruitment cycle.

Contact John toll-free at 1-800-756-7483 or via e-mail at john.baird@ruffalocody.com.