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Chief Executive Officer/Chief Advancement Officer
Calen D. B. Ouellette, MBA
Calen Ouellette has nearly 17 years of notable fundraising experience, with 13 of those in senior management roles. He is the former chief advancement officer at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, in which he directed more than 50 employees and the operational aspects of development, marketing and communication and volunteer resources. The center’s annual fundraising goal increased from $10 million to $17 million in the two years he’s led the advancement operation.
Ouellette has worked in various capacities for the University of Southern California starting in 2005, the most recent as a chief administrative officer. Other roles were chief development officer and senior executive director for external relations and student life, among others.
At the University of Southern California, Ouellette finalized a record-breaking $115 million fundraising campaign for the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry. He was responsible for annual fundraising exceeding up to $10 million annually. He managed the raising of support for capital projects, endowment funds and annual giving efforts. His largest solicited and secured gift was $35 million. He also secured a $20 million international naming gift. Ouellette was one of only a handful of academic advancement leaders building and implementing The Campaign for the University of Southern California’s $8 billion fundraising initiative that concluded in 2018.
He was also responsible for fundraising and external relations for the divisions of bio-kinesiology, physical therapy, occupational science and occupational therapy within the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry.
Before 2005, he worked at the public relations agencies CarryOn Communication in Los Angeles/New York and Porter Novelli Communications in Los Angeles.
Ouellette has extended family in Washington and Oregon. He considers himself a Washingtonian having moved to the state as a teenager and attended Washington State University in Pullman.
He earned a master’s of business administration from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and a bachelor’s with honors in public relations and communication from Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.