Mikie Sherrill has picked Dale G. Caldwell, the president of a small university in Warren County, a Methodist pastor, and former school board member in New Brunswick with a long history of government service, as the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.
Sherrill made her decision after the list of candidates was narrowed to Caldwell, the president of Centenary University, and two others: former Assistant Attorney General Shavar Jeffries and Samuel Delgado, the vice chairman of the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
The 65-year-old Caldwell became the president of Centenary in 2023. The Hackettstown-based college, which has about 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students, has called an emergency meeting of its board of trustees for tomorrow.
In 2006, he became the president and CEO of the United States Tennis Association – the first Black person to hold that post – and is a founder of the Black Tennis Hall of Fame.
Caldwell is also the pastor of the Covenant United Methodist Church in Plainfield. He is a third-generation clergyman.
He served on the New Brunswick Board of Education for 26 years, resigning 14 months ago to spend more time on his new college presidency. His daughter, Ashley, then 19, was appointed to fill his seat.
New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill appointed Caldwell to the board in 1998, following the resignation of James Appleton. When the city switched to an elected school board in 2017, Caldwell finished first in a four-candidate race for three seats. He was re-elected in 2020, again the top vote-getter, and in 2023, albeit with a 3% voter turnout. His tenure included six years as board president.
He also served as chairman of the New Brunswick Housing Authority.
Caldwell was employed by Deloitte Consulting, where he specialized in public sector health care for nearly a decade, and served as CEO of the Crossroads Theater in New Brunswick. He served on the Governor’s Council on Volunteerism and Community Service.
In 1999, he became the first executive director of the Newark Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to economic development that comprises a consortium of business and civic leaders. He was the campaign manager for Upendra Chivukula (D-Franklin) when he won his first campaign for the State Assembly in 2001 in a newly-drawn 17th legislative district.
Gov. James E. McGreevey appointed Caldwell as assistant commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs in 2002 and as deputy commissioner in 2003. While at DCA, he served on the Government Records Council. He remained in that post until 2006.
He spent nearly 25 years as a member of the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey, which administers shared services agreements for school districts in Middlesex, Mercer, Somerset, and Union counties.
Caldwell ran charter schools in Asbury Park and Trenton and was New Jersey’s Charter School Administrator of the Year in 2015; Caldwell supported a discussion on a longer school day. He ran the Rothman Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Fairleigh Dickinson University from 2018 to 2023. During the same time period, he operated his own consulting firm, Strategic Influence LLC.
His father, Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell, Jr., was a self-described foot soldier of the civil rights movement who participated in the March on Washington in 1963, voter registration drives in Mississippi in 1964, and the March from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. His grandfather was a minister in North Carolina.
Caldwell was born in Boston, graduated from Princeton University, and received an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a doctorate in Education Administration from the Seton Hall. Caldwell is the author of eight books.
A tennis player since age eight, Caldwell won a gold medal in the New Jersey Senior Olympics in 2010. He’s been ranked as a top player over age 40 in the Eastern Division. In the early 2000s, he founded a program combining tennis, technology, and theater, as well as an after-school program. He also advocated for wheelchair tennis programs.
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