SPEAKERS

August 1, 2022

Lincoln Tamayo is the founding Head of School at Academy Prep Center of Lakeland. Prior to coming to Lakeland, he served as the founding Head of School for the Academy Prep Center of Tampa from 2002 to 2019. He also serves as Chief Operating Officer for the Academy Prep Foundation, which oversees all three Academy Prep campuses in Lakeland, St. Petersburg, and Tampa. Academy Prep, all 501 (c)(3) middle schools, serves its needs-based students tuition free for up to 11 hours a day, 6 days a week, 11 months a year, followed by intensive graduate support through high school and college.

Before joining Academy Prep, Lincoln served as Assistant to the President of Boston University, Secretary to the Boston University Board of Trustees, and Assistant to the Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education. He was Principal of Chelsea High School in Chelsea, MA, as well as the lead principal of Chelsea’s two middle schools (Chelsea, at the time, was among the most economically and socially depressed cities in the U.S.). In 2001-2002, he was Chairman of English for the Children of Massachusetts, leading the statewide initiative petition campaign that reformed the bilingual education laws of Massachusetts and helped propel Mitt Romney to the Massachusetts governorship. He was subsequently invited by Governor-elect Romney to
serve on his transition team through January 2003.

Lincoln also serves his community as a trustee of the Tampa Museum of Art as well as a
member of the Citizen’s Review Board for the Tampa Police Department. He has also served as a community columnist for the Tampa Tribune as well as a trustee at Jesuit High School and Cristo Rey High School. Lincoln, a member of the Florida Bar, received the 2011 Liberty Bell Award given by the Hillsborough Bar Association. In 2016, Lincoln was honored as a Tampa Luminary by WEDU and the Junior League of Tampa; in 2019 by the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce with the Cesar and Adela Gonzmart Award and by the Economic Club of Tampa with the Jimbo Kynes Award for outstanding community service; and in 2021 as a Community Hero by the Tampa Bay Lightning Foundation.

Lincoln earned his B.A. in History from the University of Notre Dame, his J.D. from the University of Florida College of Law, and his Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University.