Carl Van Horn | Advisory Board

Carl Van Horn is a widely recognized expert on workforce, human resources and employment policy issues with extensive experience in public and private sector policymaking.

Van Horn is the founding director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, one of the nation's leading academic centers on workforce policy and practice. Van Horn is a Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. On the Rutgers faculty since 1978, he is a member of the university’s graduate faculties of planning and public policy, management and labor relations, education, and political science. He has written more than 90 articles and 15 books, including Working Scared (Or Not at All): The Lost Decade, Great Recession, and Restoring the Shattered American Dream and the fourth edition of Politics and Public Policy: Strategic Actors and Policy Domains. He is frequently sought by national media for his views on labor, workforce and economic issues.

Van Horn has also held several senior-level policymaking positions in government and universities. He has been Director of Policy for the State of New Jersey, Senior Economist at the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, and Chair of the Public Policy Department at Rutgers. Past Advisory Boardships include the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, New Jersey Transit, the Amtrak Reform Commission of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Special Arbitration Committee on Labor Protection for Amtrak Employees.

He was appointed by President Clinton to a Presidential Emergency Board to mediate a new contract between labor and management in the railroad industry. He has served as Neutral Trustee for the United Mine Workers combined health funds since 1998. Van Horn has been a member of the New Brunswick Cultural Center Board of Directors since 2002. In 2004, he was appointed Chair of the New Jersey Property Tax Convention Task Force. He was the Vice Chair of New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine’s transition in 2005. From 2006 to 2010, he was the Chair of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. In 2010, he was appointed by Governor Chris Christie to New Jersey's Council of Economic Advisors.

He has advised and consulted with myriad public and private organizations on human resources, training, education and management issues, including the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education and the National Science Foundation. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Public Service by Muskingum College. In 2008, he was appointed a Research Fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College. During the 2013-2014 academic year, Van Horn is a Visiting Non-Resident Scholar with the Federal Reserve System.

He earned a B.A. in Honors Political Science and Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in Political Science/Public Policy from Ohio State University.