The Teacher

Inspired by the film “Stand and Deliver,” Danny began his teaching career in Compton, California (south Los Angeles). He has served as a teacher and tutor to pre-K – grade 12 students. While earning his doctorate, Danny taught international students English as a Second Language at the American Language Institute at the University of Southern California, and he also served as the founding director of Loyola Marymount University’s MA program partnership with Teach for America. For 17 years he taught at California State University as a tenured professor, training educational leaders in mastering communication, motivational and leadership skills. His popular live televised courses consistently earned raves from students and casual viewers alike for content presented in a “fun, meaningful and memorable” way. Additionally, Danny helped coordinate alternative teaching credential programs that served over 4,000 teachers in 150 schools throughout 14 school districts serving over 400,000 students in the Los Angeles area. Danny is a distinguished visiting professor at the American University in Cairo and a faculty advisor for the CalStateTEACH program, operated by Fresno State University.

The Author

Danny has authored over 50 articles for newspapers, magazines and journals, and his work has been featured in publications ranging from USA Today to The Los Angeles Times. He has published 16 books, including A Baker’s Dozen of Lessons Learned from the Teaching Trenches (Shell, 2009) and Leadership Begins with Motivation (Success Press, 2020). Danny has also served as a lead consultant, reviewer and editor for a number of other publications and products.

The Trainer

In a typical year Danny speaks over 100 days on the road. He has spoken on four continents to over 35,000 people. He has shared the stage with elite authors, musicians, speakers, athletes, policymakers and business and military leaders. Hailed as “Jim Carrey with a Ph.D.” for his ability to deliver inspiring messages while providing concrete strategies to improve his audiences’ bottom lines, Danny believes that people are not looking for a speaker; they are looking for a solution to their problems. He strives to give his clients superior value and deliver more than what is expected. To that end, Danny has consulted with a number of leaders in business, medicine, education, government, athletics and the arts, and he has provided clients and colleagues with ongoing support and training. Additionally, he has developed products based specifically on the needs and interests of his clients and colleagues.

The Entrepreneur

Danny is the co-founder of TheREADINGHabit.com, the world’s top reading engagement program. He also coaches leaders interested in developing superior presentations and books in one-to-one and group settings, and his Masterminds have been hailed as “the most transformative ROI on my business…with incredible focus on getting things done NOW.” Danny is also currently working with CyberSmarties, a social media platform for kids that teaches positive, daily habits

The Student

Born to middle-class parents in upstate New York who always emphasized their children’s education, Danny was ingrained with a work ethic that has served him well throughout his life. He has constantly challenged himself. At age 11 he began his first newspaper route in Waterloo, Iowa. As a teenager he supported himself as a sandwich board man in Durango, Colorado. He has also worked as a babysitter, a busboy, a landscape artist (a.k.a. gardener), a health club attendant, a paralegal, a salesman, a stand-up comedian, an assistant to a U.S. Congressman, an archivist at the largest homeless shelter in America and a freelance journalist. Danny has traveled to 53 countries, studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, and earned degrees from three universities, including his doctorate from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. When he discovered that Theodore Roosevelt had read over 20,000 books by the age of 30, Danny resolved to start reading 5-10 books/day (a lot of those books are pop-up and scratch-n-sniffs, but he does manage to read quite a few diverse titles).

The Mass Media Veteran

In 2003 Danny founded The Lazy Readers’ Book Club (lazyreaders.com), Google’s #1-ranked site for cool, “short book recommendations,” boasting over 10,000 subscribers. He has hosted his own radio program and appeared in various television and film projects. For five seasons he hosted the TV show People Make a Difference, which could be viewed in over 4 million homes throughout Southern California and featured a variety of guests, including heart surgeon Kathy Magliato, chocolatiers Ed Engoron and Joan Vieweger, artist Synthia Saint James and literacy experts Kelly Gallagher and Stephen Krashen. Finally, his TEDx talk “The Reading Makeover” has been singled out as one of the funniest and most inspirational education speeches. And Danny is a regular guest on podcasts, live social media feeds and radio/television.

The Servant

Danny has been blessed to have a variety of wonderful mentors in his lifetime, and he takes his greatest pleasure giving back to others. When he was still an inner-city school teacher in Compton, California, he founded the non-profit organization Assignment: Books, which created school libraries in under-resourced schools. For eight years Danny served on the Board of Directors (twice as Chairman) of BookEnds, a non-profit organization created by an 8-year-old boy that created classroom libraries in under-resourced areas, responsible for nearly 3 million book donations to schools, juvenile detention facilities and group homes. One of Danny’s most gratifying positions was as literacy volunteer trainer for The Wonder of Reading, which enabled him to train thousands of volunteers at over 100 Los Angeles-area schools to work one-on-one with struggling and reluctant readers. Since Danny hated reading as a child, he loves being the driving force to help disenchanted adults find their own passions for learning. Besides being a son and a brother, he is a devoted husband and proud father of three. They are active in their church’s activities, and Danny is particularly passionate about inspiring prisoners. Danny is grateful for all of the people who have helped him and strives to help others as often as he can. He heeds the words of a tiny hymn taped on a post-it to his computer:

Others, Lord, yes others -
Let this my motto be.
Help me to live for others,
That I may live like thee.