About Us

Lidget Green is an assessment company, founded in 2003. We are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. We have four strands to our business;

• Strand One: We provide a full range of testing services to other clients, such as;

  • test design and development
  • item writing
  • technical services
  • validation and research
  • writing manuals and reports
  • training and workshops
  • advice and consultation

  A full description of our services can be viewed here

• Strand Two: We are developing a full English Proficiency Testing system (EPT). This system includes the test of College Academic English (CAE).

• Strand Three: We have developed a free website that assists in learning English. The English Listening Lounge is designed for learners of all levels and provides access to authentic recordings of natural English speakers, talking about a variety of interesting topics. Study aids and comprehension questions supplement the audio clips to form well-rounded language lessons. You can visit this website here.

• Strand Four: We have developed a Test Generator and Online Delivery system (TGOD). TGOD is a secure item writing and test development system, which will also schedule, administer and score a wide variety of tests over the Internet. Java-based, it is a secure, standardized environment, that does not require a browser, and is independent of the computer platform and operating system used. You can visit this website here.
  

Contact us at info@lidgetgreen.org if you are interested in learning more about our services.

Lidget Green, Inc. has four company officers.

Dr. Gary Buck is the founder and President of Lidget Green, and is an international testing expert, with a vast amount of experience. His particular specialty is testing English as a second language, and in this field his work is internationally known. He is the author of the standard textbook on testing second-language listening comprehension, and has published in numerous academic journals.

Before starting Lidget Green, Gary worked in a number of the leading testing organizations in the US: he is currently Director of Testing in the ELI at the University of Michigan; he was the Dean of Testing at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, where he led the design and development of many of the US Department of Defense’s high-stakes language tests; he worked in the Research Division at ETS, on the SAT, Advanced Placement, the TOEFL and the TOEIC programs; and he was the Director of Testing for Ballard & Tighe, designing tests to meet the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Forest Platzek is the Director of Operations. Forest has a first degree in business from Hawaii Pacific University, and has five years experience in the Navy, managing a variety of projects, and still holds a valid Department of Defense Secret security clearance. He is currently taking an MA in Language Testing from Lancaster University. Forest is responsible for project management, sales and marketing, and since he joined the company in 2005, he has managed a number of test development projects. He is currently focusing on marketing of the Test of College Academic English. Forest also designs our web sites.
FPlatzekCV.doc

Eric Sarvey is the Technical Director and Lead Programmer at Lidget Green. Eric is a Sun-certified programmer for the Java 2 platform Version 5.0, and has knowledge of Design Patterns, J2SE, J2EE, J2ME, Hibernate, Apache Struts, and Unix System Administration.

He has experience in application design (Netbeans, UML Modeling and J2EE Patterns), development programming (data classes, database design, Enterprise Java Beans, thin clients, Web Start), testing (Jmeter and Netbeans), and deployment (JBoss, MySQL).
Eric is responsible for the design of all Lidget Green software, and the management of all software development projects.
EricSarveyCV.doc

Pacia Platzek is the Chief Executive Officer of Lidget Green. She holds two degrees, one in Early Childhood Education and the other in Engineering Technology. She is currently responsible for the work of the Company Secretary and Chief Financial officer, as well as the day to day running of the company. Pacia is responsible for user support and provides orientation and training to new users of the Test of College Academic English, as well as the development of all the audio and visual media used in our tests. She is experienced in Photoshop, iView, Adobe Creative Suite, M-Audio, Peak, and various other digital media tools. Pacia also takes the lead in quality control and usability reviews.
PPlatzek CV.doc