While Jane Liedtke was still a full professor, and a year after she adopted her daughter from China, she founded Our Chinese Daughters Foundation (OCDF). The organization provides Chinese culture programs to children adopted from China and their families, schools, and communities. The organization has offices in Beijing, China, and Bloomington, Illinois.
Liedtke’s involvement with China is more than familial. She has served as a cultural and industrial management consultant to American, European, and Chinese companies since the early 1990s. Liedtke brings to her clients years of experience navigating the management and supervision of employees in foreign joint-venture and state-run companies.
Prior to and during her non-profit and consultancy work, she enjoyed a 30-year career as a teacher and college professor — in New Jersey, Maine, Oregon, and Illinois — in the areas of industrial arts, vocational education, and industrial technology.
Liedtke credits her graduate work in the early 1980s with helping her make a name for herself in the field of industrial education/ technology education and industrial technology. She was well published throughout her professorial career and still spends much of her time publishing books and magazines about Chinese culture.
Liedtke resides in Bloomington, Illinois, and Beijing, China, with her daughter.
This was originally written for the Distinguished Technology Alumni Awards in 2008.