DR. RAYMOND W. STAATS
Dr. Ray Staats
Dr. Staats joined Craven Community College as its fifth president on July 20, 2015. He comes to Craven Community College with over twenty years of teaching and leadership experience in higher education. Dr. Staats brings his vision, passion and experience to fulfill the college’s mission and to lead the college in seeking innovative ways that promote student success today and into the future.
Dr. Staats began his professional career as a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force. His initial duties were as a Space & Missile Operations officer, with positions in satellite command and control, space launch, and missile test and evaluation. Later, his military career transitioned to positions in higher education. He served as a faculty member at the Air Force Institute of Technology, where he taught graduate courses in Operations Research and authored several professional journal articles. He concluded his military career as the President of the Community College of the Air Force, retiring in 2009 as a Lieutenant Colonel with more than 20 years of Air Force active duty service.
Dr. Staats has continued to pursue his passion for education, serving first as Vice President for Instruction at John Wood Community College in Illinois and then as President of Gadsden State Community College in Alabama. He also taught Aviation History in Pennsylvania as a high school faculty member. Prior to his arrival at Craven, he was an Operations Research Analyst for the US Army’s Cadet Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he was responsible for selecting newly commissioned ROTC graduates across the nation for their initial Army career assignments.
Dr. Staats holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Syracuse University, a Master’s degree in Space Operations from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is a military graduate of Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, and Air War College. He also is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education.
Dr. Staats and his wife, Dawn, celebrated their 27th anniversary this year. They have two adult sons. Michael is a third-generation Air Force member currently stationed in England, and Anthony, who recently married, resides in Colorado.
