Ronald B. House, Ph.D. is the President and CEO of Nonprofit Management Simulations, Inc. The company designs learning simulations for continuing education and higher education. He is the author of the Not-For-Profit Management Simulation entitled Community Adult Services Agency Inc. (CASA Inc.). It is an online web instruction course that simulates the management of a community services 501 (c) 3 organization for a period of six months. Designed for graduate students and new management hires of not-for-profits, the simulation is an academic course for the classroom or a distance learning course using the Internet. The simulation provides experiential learning opportunities in two major areas.  First, participants address issues that arise in the day-to-day management of a not-for-profit service organization.  Second, participants must understand how the organization can best implement the broader social policies which it supports.   The CASA simulation builds on Dr. House’s extensive experience, is research based, and also takes advantage of new developments in distance learning.

In recognition of his thirty years of work in continuing education, Dr. House received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the NYS Rehabilitation Association.  This award recognizes persons who have “established a legacy in the rehabilitation field.”  Dr. House’s legacy includes basic research on organizational behavior within not-for-profit organizations, applied research on learning and teaching methods, and policy development.  His Ph.D. from Cornell University in Human Service Studies, Organizational Behavior and Labor Relations is entitled A Study of the Relationships Among Job Category, Performance of the Organization, and Employees’ Perceptions of Their Roles in Vocational Rehabilitation. 

Before his employment at Cornell University, Dr. House had studied public administration at Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and in 1965 won a public administration internship with the Commissioner of the NYS Department of Labor. While at the Department of Labor, he became the Department’s liaison to the Cornell Industrial & Labor Relations School, designing management programs for state officials. In 1969 he was offered a position at the I&LR School.

While at Cornell University, he was a member of the faculties of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the College of Human Ecology and taught graduate courses at Cornell.  Dr. House has conducted international training courses in Canada and France and served on state and federal advisory boards on disability policy. He has published research articles and several instructional videos on “Being Entrepreneurial: A Business Guide for CILS” and “Effective Independent Living Board/ Staff Relationships”.  He has been an editor of the Rehabilitation Journal, and wrote over twenty–five management and employee short-term training manuals. 

He was the recipient of four national grants from the Department of Education in Rehabilitation Management, Supported Employment, Persons Centered Planning and Community Residence Management, and Independent Living Management; they totaled twenty million dollars.  He was President of the organization of Colleges and Universities with Federal Grant Programs in Disability Services.   He has combined local service as chairman of the board of a rehabilitation facility with national service which included testimony before congressional committees concerned with policy toward facilities serving people with disabilities.

Dr. House is experienced in designing a wide range of educational simulations, including how to manage a vocational rehabilitation program, a supported employment program, an independent living center, an urban housing development center, and a Staff Orientation for New Rehab. The Vocational Rehabilitation Simulation “Workshop” developed by Dr. William J. Wasmuth and Dr. House was adopted by ten colleges and universities for degree programs and continuing education programs and became famous as the “Cornell Game.”  He retired from Cornell in 1996 for health reasons but in 1997 recovered, and became the director of the Continuing Education Rehabilitation Management Program at the University at Buffalo.  In 2000 he won the national competition for the National Research and Rehabilitation Training Center for Nonprofit Management –I L M Project, Department of Education, NIDRR and became the co-principal investigator and Director of Research.  In 2007 he incorporated Nonprofit Management Simulations, Inc. to design management simulations and other forms of training.