Former Oklahoma Education Secretary Phyllis Hudecki currently serves as the executive director of the Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition (OBEC), a business-led coalition established in 2000 to improve and strengthen education in Oklahoma. The organization has partnered with the State Department of Education and the State Regents for Higher Education on several initiatives aimed at system education reform in Oklahoma, including the design and enactment of Achieving Classroom Excellence legislation, which raised standards and increased requirements to receive a high school diploma.

In 2010, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin selected Hudecki to serve as secretary of education, calling her “one of the leading education-policy minds in Oklahoma and in the nation.” During her time as secretary, Hudecki played a key role in efforts to boost student performance and accountability in Oklahoma’s public schools. Hudecki was also instrumental in the implementation of Complete College America in Oklahoma, an action plan which includes working with K-12 to focus on college readiness, transforming remediation, expanding collaboration with CareerTech, enhancing adult degree completion efforts, and tracking and rewarding improvements in degree completion.

Hudecki previously served as the associate director of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education at the University of California-Berkeley. She has also held positions with the Iowa, Missouri, and Massachusetts state departments of education, as well as the U.S. Department of Education. She began her career as a teacher in Norwich, Connecticut and served as a high school assistant principal in Kansas City, Missouri.

Hudecki received her doctorate of education as well as her bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University. She holds an educational specialist degree in education administration from the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a masters degree in education from the University of Connecticut.