Dina Walker, President/CEO of BLU Educational Foundation, has over 15 years of experience working with non-profit and governmental agencies in various capacities from developing and managing programs and services to convening groups around issues impacting a variety of populations. She has extensive experience serving communities of color, at-risk youth and parents of underserved populations. Her tenure has brought about partnerships with schools, colleges and universities to increase the access to higher education. Relative to this work, she designed the College Exodus Project, a collaborative initiative helping students in Inland Empire high schools gain admission and financial aid to four-year public and private universities throughout the country.

She has held leadership roles in agencies such as: Leadership Excellence, a multifaceted non-profit agency serving San Diego’s inner-city youth; DC-College Access Program, a private effort to increase the college matriculation rates of students in the underserved communities of the nation’s capital; and was a driving force in the creation of Hardy Brown College Prep, one of the Inland Empire’s highest performing public schools.

Ms. Walker has raised over $1 million dollars in grant funding to support local schools and has provided over a half million dollars in scholarships to local high school students. She says her greatest accomplishments have been personally helping students realize their dream of attending and graduating from college.

Ms. Walker was recognized as a Woman of Vision and Leadership by the California 62nd Assembly District as one of the many awards she has received for her community leadership, public service and educational advocacy. She is a member of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools- Alliance for Education; and currently serves on the San Bernardino City Unified School District African American Task Force and on the Multilingual Initiative Stakeholders group.

Recently, she was elected to serve on Board Education for the Rialto Unified School District.

She has a B.A. in Education from San Diego State University and post-baccalaureate studies in Non-Profit Management from the University of Maryland.