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County Achievement Awards
Hampshire County

William Phillip Gorth
National Evaluation Systems, Inc.

Dr. William Phillip Gorth is the President and co-founder of National Evaluation Systems, Inc. (NES), which has served the education community since 1972. NES has provided test development and administration services to national, state, and local public educational agencies and private educational publishing companies. In 1975 NES began contracting with state education agencies to develop and administer testing programs for teacher certification (i.e., teacher licensing.) In addition to test development activities, NES conducts the administration of the tests at sites across the state, the scoring of candidates’ responses and the reporting of test results to each candidate. As with many other professions that require candidates to pass a test as a condition for licensure to practice in the state, the company’s work helps to ensure the quality of teachers entering public school classrooms. NES is a firm committed to growing in Hampshire County, and this year broke ground for a new building to house its operations.

Bill Gorth has participated in many public and entrepreneurial activities of Hampshire County. In Amherst he has served on the Planning Board for two terms, and also chaired a task force for the Economic Development and Industrial Corporation. For more than a decade, he has been Treasurer of the Amherst chapter of the American Field Service student exchange program, and was a member of the Amherst Rotary Club. During graduate school at Stanford University, he participated in the startup of an educational publishing company, Creative Publications, which specialized in enrichment activities in mathematics for school children, and which was later purchased by a subsidiary of the Westinghouse Corporation. Bill was an officer and president of the Amherst Economic Development Corporation, which supported local entrepreneurs and sponsored events to promote entrepreneurship in the region. For several years he teamed with other NES officers and two additional entrepreneurs to operate the Pioneer Valley Venture Corporation, which sought to advise and fund startup businesses in the region. Along with the officers and staff of NES, Bill has contributed time and resources to many local educational organizations.