Karen Rainford, PMP, specializes in project management education and customized course development, bringing real life project and portfolio management experiences from the financial, telecommunications, health care, and information services industries to the classroom. Karen is a risk management consultant and speaker.
Karen received her MBA and B.A. from the University of Minnesota and is currently working on her dissertation proposal for the degree of Ed.D. in Leadership at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota with a focus on curriculum development and adult learning in project management. Karen recently taught project management courses for 500 graduating university seniors in East Africa.
Karen was recognized in 2009 as the recipient of the Ana Alvarez-Holmberg Scholarship awarded by PMI-MN and the Twin Cities chapter of the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD-TCC), which honors a dynamic local leader in project management and corporate training with a demonstrated commitment to community service and to continuous learning and with high personal standards and passion for life.
Karen is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP®) through the Project Management Institute in 2003 and is a past Program Manager for Certification for MI-Minnesota. As an adjunct associate professor in the M.S. Project Management program at Saint Mary's University for nine years, Karen focuses on Risk and Quality Management and has been an instructor for Microsoft Project EPM. Karen worked in portfolio management at Thomson-Reuters and Express Scripts, and has 18 years of infrastructure and software development project management experience at major corporations.