Dr. Wayne Patton

Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Wayne Patton began his career in online education at Liberty University, where he served in various roles from 2002 to 2017. Starting as a graduate assistant he worked his way up to staff, faculty, department chair, Director of Academic Operations for the Dean of Online, to serving as the Online Dean for the College of General Studies from 2010 to 2017. It was through this entire experience that he learned the key aspects of online operations from the ground floor up.

In 2007 Dr. Patton began consulting with other institutions in the rapidly growing arena on online education and, by 2017 he co-founded Magellan Learning Solutions. Building off almost twenty years of experience and relationships, he and his partner Aaron Traphagen have built an extensive network of experienced administrators, instructional designers, faculty, staff, and operational personnel.

He has been married to Amy since 1990 and they have one daughter. Wayne loves running and has finished forty-eight full marathons and some thirty half marathons. He also enjoys road biking and kayaking.

“I fully confess that I am rather addicted to discussing online learning. I have lived its transition from shipping course materials and scantron sheets to its lightning-fast transition to the digital world. As I often say, we are still deep in the frontier wild west era of this paradigm shift. My focus has been on building teams that can be agile and adapt in this ever-changing venture. Never stagnant, I love the rush of messy projects that drive student success, shakes up the status quo, equips faculty and staff, drives quality assurance, strengthens the organizational structure, builds consensus, and drives improved communication.”