Prior to joining NCHEMS in 1993, he was a senior staff member for 17 years at the Education Commission of the States (ECS), one of the principal sources of policy advice on education reform for state governments. On the international level, he has served as examiner for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reviews of education policy in the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Ireland, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and Turkey, He is currently a consultant to the World Bank on governance of technical/engineering in India. He was general rapporteur for the September 2007 OECD International Conference, Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged. Previously, Marmolejo was an American Council on Education fellow on higher education leadership development at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His past positions include vice president for administration and academic vice president at the Universidad de las Americas in Mexico.