Gilbert F. Ivey is the President and CEO of Gilbert F. Ivey & Associates, LLC. He and his wife Sherrill formed this family and friends based business to provide executive coaching, business development, public policy and strategic planning services. He is a highly sought after motivational speaker as he rose from the streets of Compton, California to over 40 years later becoming the highest ranking African-American in the nation's water industry.
He served as the 2016 Chairman of the Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed). BizFed is a diverse grassroots alliance of more than 155 business organizations, which represent over 300,000 businesses with three million employees. BizFed advocates for policies and projects that strengthen Los Angeles county’s regional economy comprised of 88 cities. Gilbert served as the 2017-2018 Chair of the BizFed Institute, a compliment to BizFed. BizFed Institute educates, engages, equips and measures consensus solutions from civically minded, nonprofit, academic and regional thought leaders for the purpose of building strong communities throughout California.
Gilbert served eight years as the Chairman of the La Verne Planning Commission f, recently recognized for the Old Town La Verne strategic plan. The strategic plan includes transit oriented development adjacent to and surrounding the proposed Gold Line light-rail extension and proposed new La Verne station.
He is dedicated to providing opportunities for younger generations as exhibited by his diverse service to the community, serving as Chairman of the Water and Technology Committee of the Career and Technical Education Center at the Los Angeles Fairplex for youth and adults seeking careers in the water industry and as a Board Member of the Los Angeles County Fairplex Advisory Board. Gilbert gives back to his community by serving as a member of California State University Dominguez Hills Foundation Board and is an Advisory Board Member of the Sustainability Program at UCLA Extension. Gilbert previously served on the Executive Boards of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Central City Association, THINK Together, and the American Association of Blacks in Energy. He was also Chair for six consecutive years until 2015 of LA Chamber's ACCESS DC – a business advocacy contingency of 200 business, elected, and civic leaders (including LA County Supervisors, mayors from LA, Long Beach, Pasadena and others) who met with White House officials, Senators, U.S. Representatives and staff to ensure LA receives a hefty return on its fees and taxes collected by the Feds.
Gilbert is the former Chief Administrative Officer of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the nation’s largest wholesale water agency, providing water to nearly 19 million people from Ventura to the Mexican border. During his stellar 45-year administrative, operations and engineering functions of Metropolitan, he gained invaluable experiences in Human Resources; management of Metropolitan’s Real Property Portfolio of 195 thousand acres of property; Information Technology and award-winning Business Outreach Program; and design, development, construction and operation of Metropolitan’s headquarters at Union Station. The headquarters building received BOMA's "Government Building of the Year" on two successive occasions. Gilbert also served as management's Chief Labor negotiator and was appointed by the Board of Directors to be the Interim Chief Executive Officer of Metropolitan during the long search for a new CEO. Gilbert's people skills and quick study were often used on complex and highly sensitive transactions and politically charged negotiations.
Born in Oceanside and raised in Compton, California he earned a B.S. in Business Administration from California State University Dominguez Hills. Gilbert also earned several professional designations and certifications from Pepperdine University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of Southern California. Gilbert is a leader recognized by numerous organizations including Southern California Leadership Network Visionary for Public Sector Leader of the Year, Tom Bradley Equal Opportunity Award, Patriot’s Award from the Department of Defense, and LEED Platinum and Silver Awards for Metropolitan facilities. Gilbert is also a cancer and heart survivor, and is a man of Faith.
Finally, Gilbert has had the tremendous opportunity of working on and off-camera for movies and television and live performances and recordings as a background singer and voice-over with top entertainers.
Gilbert Ivey
Devon Ivey
Ed.d., M.Ed.
Dr. Devon Ivey is a researcher, program developer, evaluator, and trainer for government and community-based organizations. He also is a k-12 curriculum writer and educator who specializes in inquiry-based learning. Dr. Ivey has 16 years of experience collaborating with community-based organizations to develop, fund, staff, and manage innovative programs for systems impacted youth and their families. He has 13 years of experience in talent development and training for schools, foster family agencies, and residential facilities. He has 15 years of experience in evaluating the impacts of education and social service programs on their targeted populations as well as whole communities.
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Dr. Ivey has authored or co-authored 378 RFPs that brought a combined $75,600,000 to community-based organizations in under-served communities in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia. He has conducted formative, summative, process, and impact evaluations for education-based organizations across the nation, non-profits, and local government agencies.
Dr. Ivey enhanced his skill sets in program development, organizational management, and leadership as a Doctoral Candidate in Transformational Leadership at Concordia University, Portland. He completed his Doctorate at Azusa Pacific University where he researched current and promising social service practices in marginalized communities. He also holds a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction for science.