Will Melton
Senior Consultant
Will Melton comes to RPA Inc. following a five-year appointment as Vice President for Rhode Island School of Design and the RISD Museum of Art, during which he led the largest capital campaign ever completed for an art school. He also administered the institution’s programs in corporate and government-sponsored research, public relations, alumni affairs, student career counseling, and the Center for Design and Business. As vice president for Middlebury College, Will managed a highly successful $213-million campaign from early planning to completion and simultaneously led the team that conducted Middlebury’s celebration of its bicentennial, one of the most ambitious such programs ever conceived, and the third campaign by a liberal arts college to exceed the $200-million fundraising barrier. During a seven-year tenure at Yale University, Will completed a $125-million campaign for the School of Medicine and was chief development officer simultaneously for both the School and its teaching affiliate, Yale-New Haven Hospital. He was a member of the team that planned Yale’s $1.7- billion And for Yale drive, the first capital campaign to set and achieve a billion- dollar goal. Concurrently, he was responsible for conducting a campaign for construction of the 200-bed Children’s Hospital at Yale-New Haven. Will’s special interest has been the program planning, promotion, and funding for library projects. He has also led programs to establish a major molecular biology laboratory, a museum building, a science center, as well as facilities for classrooms, studios, dormitories, and athletics. Will was recently appointed to a third term as trustee of his alma mater, Northfield Mount Hermon School.