Rick Gay joined Fort Bend Independent School District as the Executive Director of Business Services in November 2022. He has been a school business official for the last 28 years, with over 43 years of experience in increasingly responsible administrative leadership and staff positions with the US Military, state government, academia, corporate business, and public education. He has worked in school business positions at Clear Creek ISD, Plano ISD, Baltimore County Public Schools, Houston ISD, and Spring Branch ISD. He is a Certified Public Purchasing Officer (CPPO) through the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing (NIGP) and a Registered School Business Official (RSBO) through the Association of School Business Officials for Maryland and the District of Columbia. Upon his return to Texas in 2015 he earned his Registered Texas School Business Administrator (RTSBA) certification through the Texas Association of School Business Officials (TASBO). Over the last 28 plus years his business initiatives have returned over $80 million in savings to the classroom to educate children. During his career in public procurement, he’s awarded procurement contracts valued at $1.5 billion to MBE/WBE/SBE Contractors.
While leading three different school district Procurement Departments, they received the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing (NIGP) Outstanding Agency Accreditation Achievement Award – OA4 now called the Quality Public Procurement Department (QPPD) five times. While leading these four different Procurement Offices they also received The National Purchasing Institute’s (NPI) Achievement of Excellence in Procurement 17 of the last 20 years. In 2010 The BCPS Procurement Department received their ISO 9001:2008 certification. Gay is a published author nationally, and regionally as well as having presented at regional and national conferences on such topics as Procurement Operations, eProcurement, reverse auctions, spend management and transparency, vendor evaluations, procurement cards, cooperative purchasing, procurement of technology, reducing transportation shipping costs in the material supply chain, Leadership and School Business Management.