Nate Mackinnon was appointed Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges (MACC) in May of 2021. In his role, Nate works on behalf of the fifteen community college presidents and their local Boards of Trustees to strengthen community colleges for the benefit of students, communities, and the Commonwealth. The community colleges in Massachusetts currently serve more than 136,000 students, representing nearly half of the total students in the state’s public higher education system.

Prior to joining MACC as Executive Director, Nate served as the Vice Chancellor for Community Colleges at the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), and while in Nevada he worked as an Adjunct Faculty Member at Truckee Meadows Community College. Prior to his work in Nevada, Mackinnon was the Assistant Commissioner and Chief of Staff at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) for more than eight years. He has also served as Research Director for the Joint Committee on Education in the Massachusetts Legislature and prior to that as Research Coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Education.

Mackinnon graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and received his Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University. He was the 2014 recipient of the Lucius N. Littauer Award from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and was a Governor Robert F. Bradford Fellow for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at Harvard University for 2013-2014.

Nate currently serves as the Chair of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges (NCSDCC), and as President of the Board for Raising the Village, USA.