NEW GROWTH LEADS TO NEW HIRES

By: Huntington Learning Centers | 2 Shares 752 Reads

(ORADELL, NJ) Following a year of unprecedented growth, Huntington Learning Center has welcomed two new professionals to its franchise development staff. Mark W. Mele, who has more than 21 years of experience in building and guiding top franchise brands, will serve as Vice President, Franchise Development. Jeffrey L. Bura, with nine years of experience in both sales and franchise management, will serve as Director of Development.
Mele comes to Huntington with extensive experience at Oxford Learning Centers and Kumon North America, Inc. At Oxford, he focused on expanding and maintaining the brand, which is a start-up operation in the U.S. and was established in Canada in 1984. At Kumon, his leadership as Vice President of Franchise Development resulted in the opening of over 500 new franchised Kumon learning centers in four years.
Bura began his career in October, 1999 as Regional Sales Manager of AAMCO Transmissions, where he soon became a District Manager and served most recently as the Regional Manager for Franchise Development. His successful track record includes full P & L responsibility for 105 franchise locations with sales in excess of $65 million.
â€œHuntingtonâ€™s success has always been driven by the entrepreneurial spirit of staff committed to capitalizing on our 30 years of experience as the nationâ€™s longest running provider of supplemental education services, and weâ€™re thrilled to have Mark and Jeffrey guiding us toward the future,â€ said Huntington Learning Center Chief Executive Officer J.J. Sorrenti.
Mele and Bura join the Huntington team during a period of unprecedented growth, highlighted by the opening of 66 franchises in 2006, a record for Huntington. While the growth has been fueled largely by the desire of entrepreneurial educators to create a stable, community-based business, it has also been driven by the rising number of parents and families seeking tutoring for students facing difficulties in meeting increasingly rigorous academic standards. Since 1998, the supplemental education services industry as a whole has grown at a compounded annual rate of nearly 12 percent, reaching $6 billion in 2004.
The need for supplemental education services is driven further by the rising number of students enrolled in K-12 public and private schools. According to the U.S. Department of Education, enrollment in elementary and secondary schools rose 20

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