REINVENTING Physical Education

About Jake

Jake Glover began his career in health and wellness almost a decade ago as a clinical exercise specialist that focused on gait training strategies for individuals recovering from stroke or brain trauma. He has published numerous articles on the use of adaptive training strategies and physiological data to improve fitness in traditional rehabilitation settings.

After being inspired by a pediatric stroke victim, Jake became a certified high school physical educator eventually creating one of the first state-certified AP Anatomy and Physiology curricula in the country. The curriculum design prepared students for a nationally accredited personal training certification with a job placement program that included community wellness counseling. One of his inner-city programs utilized a high-school mentorship program to reduce the district's middle-school obesity rate by 46% over two-years and featured his award winning "Anatomy Rap." Jake was then recruited to run the cardiac rehab and youth physical activity research for the Polar Scholar Master's Program in Grundy Center, Iowa. In this role, he worked with a graduate team to collect heart-rate based physical activity and biometric data on every student in the town for a full calendar year.

After completing his work in Iowa, Glover served as lead author or grant administrator for multiple state and federal community grant initiatives that featured technology-based data collection and curriculum innovations. He raised more than two-million dollars in public and private funding for school-based wellness programs in 13 different states before becoming the Director of Health and Wellness Initiatives for America's Health Insurance Plans in Washington, D.C. in 2009.

He now specializes in wellness-focused benefit design and disease management strategies for individual and group health care markets. Jake can be heard weekly on his AHIP Wellness Podcast series interviewing health care executives, fitness celebrities, and public officials on modern wellness and prevention strategies.

About TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)