Crystal is a Licensed Social Worker, and holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Ohio State University, and an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech. She is also a graduate of the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and of the Executive Leadership Institute at the Voinovich Center for Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University.  

She has been involved in extensive legislative advocacy and public policy development for PCSAO in the areas of child welfare, child welfare finance reform, kinship care, and welfare reform. She has worked in the fields of juvenile justice and child protection in Virginia and Minnesota as a direct service professional, and with the private child placing sector in Pittsburgh. Crystal also has considerable knowledge and experience in the areas of the rule making process, strategic plan development, research and analysis, media and public relations.  

Crystal is active in a variety of community service activities and occasionally teaches as an adjunct professor at the College of Social Work at Ohio State University.  

Crystal created and was project manager for the first four PCSAO Factbooks. She started at PCSAO in 1991 as a student intern and never left.  Crystal has been the Executive Director since 2001.