Alan S. Hejnal currently serves as the data quality manager in the Office of Advancement of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, where he has primary responsibility for records management for the 1.9-million record database that serves the world's largest museum, education, and research complex, with 19 museums, 9 research centers, and affiliates around the world—and a zoo!

Alan has been an advancement services professional for more than 35 years, at institutions including the University of Oregon Foundation, the University of Richmond, Gettysburg College, Marquette University, DePaul University, and the Claremont Graduate University.  In a variety of roles, he has managed gift processing, records management, reporting, and prospect research, and has led the implementation of advancement systems at several institutions.  He has served as the liaison between Advancement and Information Services, and has gone back and forth between being the person in Advancement who understands something about Information Services, and being the person in Information Services who understands something about Advancement.

Alan has had a particular interest in the standards and regulations that apply to Advancement, has presented at AASP and CASE conferences on related topics, has been an active participant in the FundSvcs community, and has been a member of the AASP Best Practices in Records Management Committee.  He is enjoying his current role of—in the words of a former colleague—“being the person who wakes up in the morning and thinks, ‘How can I make our data better?’”  He is also serving as a Subject Matter Expert for the Smithsonian’s implementation of Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud as part of a larger Salesforce implementation.

Alan holds a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics from Hobart and William Smith College, a master of arts degree in mathematics from The University of Michigan, and a master of arts degree in religion from Claremont School of Theology.