Marty Lester finished his twenty-seventh year of Independent Education in June of 2023. The Headmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal School in Mobile, Alabama for eight years, he also served the school as teacher, coach, department chair, club sponsor and administrator. Prior to being named Headmaster, he served as Middle School Director and chairman of the Administrative Leadership Committee during the search for a new Headmaster in 2007-8. He was most recently the Head of School at Brookstone School in Columbus, Georgia and has served in that role since the fall of 2016.
A recipient of the Coca Cola Foundation/Joseph B. Whitehead Educator of Distinction Award in 2000, Lester taught United States and World History, the history of the 20th Century, Law and Society, and, as a special topic in the Community Service curriculum at St. Paul’s, Mental Health Law. An instructor and administrator in the St. Paul’s Alternative Instruction Program for students with specific types of learning differences, Lester received professional development and training in strategies for teaching students with nonverbal learning disorders (at the 2000 Harvard University Graduate School of Education Learning Disorders Conference), differentiated instruction (at the 2009 Harvard GSE Learning Differences Conference), the Architecture of Learning (2010), and dyslexia (2015). He also attended the Southern Association of College Admissions Counselors Summer Seminar at Tulane University in 2001.
A USATF Level 1 certified track and field coach, Lester served on the staff of Coach Jim Tate and was an assistant coach on thirteen state championship teams in Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field in a seven year span.
Professionally, he has served on reaccreditation committees for the Southern Association of Independent Schools four times and has presented at the annual SAIS meeting on the role of the Headmaster in the College Admission Process in 2015. He also presented in 2019 at the winter MISBO meeting for Independent School Finance on the topic of Right Sizing and the Preservation of School Culture. Lester was also scheduled to be a part of a panel discussing the interrelationship of the development of a strategic plan, master campus plan, and branding platform at the National Association of Independent Schools meeting in Boston in the spring of 2015, but weather prevented him from participating. In the Fall of 2020 he, along with Andy Fleming with The Developmental Edge, presented to the Ethical Leadership Symposium on the Blanchard Leadership Institute, founded at Brookstone under his leadership. In June of 2023, Lester was the closing keynote speaker at the UMS – Wright Annual School Leadership Conference.
During the 2017-18 academic year at Brookstone, the school implemented random, mandatory drug testing for students in grades 8-12. Policy and implementation guides were drafted and approved with his help and he has been asked to speak to civic organizations on the process the led to the policy change, its objectives, and the hope it brings for the students at Brookstone.
Lester, along with Director of Teaching and Learning Resources, Kelli Etheredge, was selected to compete at the Microsoft Innovative Educations US Forum in Redmond, Washington, where they presented on the St. Paul’s Progression Model, a faculty development tool in 2012. The Progression Model allows schools to “flip” professional development and allow teachers to have customized development opportunities for their specific needs and interest.
A former member of the Advisory Board of the Mobile Chamber of Commerce, Lester served on the Underage Drinking Task Force, a group of counselors, educators, and law enforcement professionals established to confront the problems caused by underage alcohol consumption. He also served on the Board of the Wave of Hope, a treatment program organized under the auspices of the Drug Education Council in Mobile for children with drug and alcohol addictions.
Formerly on the Board of the Alabama Independent School Association, Lester served as the Secretary/Treasurer of the Alabama Association of the Independent Schools and was part of the executive committee that effectuated the merger of the two organizations. He currently serves on the Board of the Georgia Independent School Association and serves on a task force for the Association dealing with the possible reunification and reclassification of the private schools in the realm of athletics. Lester also was recently invited to membership in the Southern Heads of School Association.
Prior to becoming an educator, Lester practiced law in Mobile, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi for nine years. After working in the Mobile County, Alabama District Attorney’s Office for two years, he worked in the areas of Oil and Gas Law, Probate, and Mental Health Law. His practice in Mental Health Law continued for 12 years after becoming a teacher, and he represented clients with mental illness both in the probate court system in Alabama and at Searcy State Mental Hospital in Mt. Vernon, Alabama before it closed. He also served the Town of Dauphin Island, Alabama as its prosecutor from 1995 to 1997.
Lester received his B.A. from Millsaps College in 1984, his J.D. from the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University in 1987, and a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from the University of South Alabama in 2001.
He is married to Kris Davis Lester, and together they have five children, Trey age 34, Wil 30, Gracie 28, Adam, 26, and Ana Frances 23. Lester is a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mobile.