Speaker Profile

Dana Harrell is an attorney and principal of Harrell Associates and Adjunct Associate Professor at Bentley University. A book entitled "Leveling the Playing Field: The Story of the Syracuse 8" published in 2015 recounts the experience of Harrell and eight of his African American teammates on the Syracuse football team during the Civil Rights era. The great Jim Brown, Syracuse '57 wrote the forward to the book. Harrell attended Syracuse University on a football scholarship, was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and earned an MPA in Public Affairs. He graduated first in his class from the Real Estate Institute at New York University in 1974, graduated from New York Law School in 1979 and was admitted to the New York bar in 1980. Harrell stepped away from his thriving business in 2008 when Governor Deval Patrick appointed him Deputy Commissioner for Real Estate Services, Division Capital Asset Management, Commonwealth of Massachusetts responsible for the State's acquisitions, dispositions, development and leasing transactions.