Our Leadership Team
Since 1921, federal, local and state government and some of our nation’s most respected organizations have entrusted Graduate School USA (GSUSA) to train and develop their employees to become their biggest assets.
From 176 students in eight courses to now more than 250 courses and thousands of students worldwide each year, one thing has remained the same – GSUSA’s commitment to our customers’ success.
Take a moment to learn more information about the Graduate School USA leadership team.
Steve Somers
President Graduate School USA
Steve identified and led APEI’s effort to acquire Graduate School USA in 2021. Upon closing of the transaction, he was named Acting President in January 2022 until January 2023 and focused on stabilizing and re-energizing Graduate School’s long history of training the federal workforce. He returned to lead GSUSA again in May 2024. Steve has a deep experience in the training industry through his work helping to build Kaplan Professional into a $200MM business that was focused on training professionals for certifications, licensures and continuing education across the financial, securities, insurance, real estate, technology and engineering sectors.
Steve has been part of GSUSA’s parent company since June of 2020 when he joined APEI. He was responsible for advancing APEI’s business strategy and corporate development initiatives. He has extensive transaction experience, having completed over 50 M&A and corporate finance transactions across the Education & Training, e-commerce and Wireless industries.
Prior to APEI, Mr. Somers spent almost 10 years in the education industry, serving most recently as VP of Corporate Development at Kaplan, Inc. for 5 years, where he executed over 15 deals as a strategic partner across Kaplan’s various business units. Previously, he was VP of Corporate Development, Investor Relations & Treasury at Rosetta Stone where he helped expand Rosetta’s language business through two acquisitions and enter the literacy business with the acquisition of Lexia Learning. Before his time in the education space, Mr. Somers led M&A and IR at two public companies - first in the wireless industry with SunCom Wireless, where he led its sale to T-Mobile and then at GSI Commerce in the e-commerce industry where he helped grow GSI before it’s sale to Ebay. Earlier in his career, Mr. Somers was an equity research analyst at DLJ.
Mr. Somers is a Charted Financial Analyst (CFA) and earned a B.S. in Business and Economics with a concentration in Finance from Lehigh University and an MBA from Villanova University.
Mary Bartlett
Senior Vice President, Operations
Mary Bartlett joined Graduate School USA in January 2022 as the Senior Vice President, Operations, after leading the integration of Graduate School USA into American Public Education, Inc., where she was the Vice President of Acquisitions. As Graduate School USA’s SVP of Operations, Ms. Bartlett is responsible for building the objectives and values and ensuring the company has the proper operational controls and metrics, organizational structure, administrative and reporting procedures, and people systems in place to provide a foundation to effectively grow the organization.
Ms. Bartlett has spent over 16 years in various operational capacities focused on optimizing operations, growing revenue, improving customer loyalty, streamlining processes, integrating change, and building high-performing teams as the COO in the shared office space industry at The Reserve and as Vice President and General Manager at Arise Virtual Solutions, a global virtual workforce solutions company.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Bartlett was a Director of Operations with Accenture. She graduated from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, with a Bachelor of Arts in both Marketing and Communications.
Michael Dwyer
Vice President, Business Development
Michael Dwyer serves as the Vice President of Business Development at Graduate School USA. In this role, he is responsible for creating and executing business development strategies designed to meet the challenges faced by customers in today’s evolving federal workforce.
Mr. Dwyer has over 25 years of government experience in executive leadership in business development. Prior to joining Graduate School USA, he served as a Senior Client Partner and Vice President of Korn Ferry Government for 12 years. In addition, he held executive business development leadership roles with Experian Government Services and founded the LexisNexis Digital Assessment Management organization. Many of the transformational solutions he led the development and sale of are leveraged by millions of people living within the United States today.
Michael holds a Top-Secret clearance and an undergraduate degree from Wayne State University.