CEO Families Empowered

Colleen Dippel founded Families Empowered in 2009 and is the current CEO. Families Empowered is a parent service organization that serves over 100,000 families across four cities in Texas. She is a former teacher, a mother and a recovering education reformer. She founded Families Empowered because she believes that parents and caregivers are the most important stakeholders in the life of a child and deserve the power to determine where their children go to school. She is motivated by big transformative projects that feel impossible but have the promise to change lives. Families Empowered is the only organization providing free, unbiased, bilingual school search and application services to the most under-resourced families in Texas.

Colleen served on the advisory board of the Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Program (REEP). She is a member of the Texas Families Leadership Council and a member of the ACE Scholarship-Houston, Heritage Classical, and Thrive with Autism Charter School Advisory Boards. She holds a BA from SUNY Albany and a MA in educational leadership from National Louis University. Colleen is the proud mother of two active children.