Jade Gingerich, Ex-Officio Member

Jade Ann Gingerich has over two decades of state policy making, starting as Executive Director of the Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities and most recently as Director of Employment Policy for the Maryland Department of Disabilities (MDOD), the nation’s only Cabinet level cross-disability Department. An expert in state level interagency and external coordination and collaboration, she has presented widely on the topic of employment and transition, testified before the state legislature, and served as an expert on national advisory boards related to employment and transition policy.

Her accomplishments are numerous and include co-leading Maryland’s earliest Employment First efforts, creation of the Employed Individuals with Disabilities program (Maryland’s Medicaid Buy In), leading the Maryland Medicaid Infrastructure grant and co-founding the Maryland’s Youth Leadership Forum, co-chairing the Workgroup overseeing the elimination of subminimum wage in Maryland, and serving as a founding member of the State Agency Transition Collaborative. In addition to her policy work, Ms. Gingerich served as Project Director for Maryland PROMISE grant, a 5-year research grant awarded to Maryland in October 2013 by the US Department of Education. PROMISE, a cross agency partnership, worked to increase education and employment outcomes for youth between the ages of 14 and 16 on SSI and their families. She currently serves as MDOD’s representative to the Maryland Statewide Independent Living Council, Maryland 2 GEN Commission and the Center for Advancing Policy on Employment of Youth Working group. She has a Master of Science in Special Education with a specialization in Transition Services from The Johns Hopkins University.