Education:

• He completed his Master's Degree in Music at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
• His undergraduate work was done at Eastern Michigan University.

• He studied conducting with Elizabeth A. H. Green and H. Robert Reynolds at the University of Michigan.

• From 1990-1995 he conducted the Symphony Orchestra, the Symphonic Band, and the Oklahoma Opera and Music Theater Company.
• He guest conducted the Oklahoma City Philharmonic in 1993.
• He was Music Director and Conductor of Lyric Theatre in Oklahoma City for the 1991-1992 seasons.
• Prior to moving to Oklahoma, he was Conductor of the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras and Coordinator of Chamber Music at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York.

• In 1995 he was named Interim Dean, and he immediately began a restructuring of the school's administration, increased the school's development activities, and began the strategic planning process for the expansion of the existing facilities.
• He joined the faculty at Oklahoma City University in 1990 as Director of Instrumental Programs.
• During 1989-90, through a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts, he served as Project Director with the Aesthetic Education Institute and the Eastman School of Music. It was the Eastman School of Music that brought him to Rochester, where he was pursuing his doctorate.
• For the summers of 1987-90, Parker was a member of the conducting faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp at Interlochen, Michigan. There he conducted high school and university ensembles comprised of some of the most talented students from around the world.
• From 1982-87, he was on the faculty of the Department of Music at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma, where he served as Director of Instrumental Music.
• In Michigan, his home state, he taught in the public schools for four years and served as Director of Instrumental Music at Whiteford Public Schools at Ottawa Lake, Michigan.

• He was named Outstanding Professor of the School of Music and Performing Arts in 1994 and again in 1995.

• Serving as President of the Jury, he traveled to Egypt for the Cairo International Music Festival in July of 1996. While there he led the eight-member panel through a week's judging of musicians from twenty-seven countries.
• In January of 1996 he traveled with Governor Frank Keating and other state leaders to Israel. This trip took him throughout Israel and included meetings with then-Prime Minister Shimon Perez.
• Representing the State of Oklahoma, he was a delegate to the first U.S.-Japan Grassroots Summit in 1991 held in Tokyo and Kyoto.

• Under his leadership the Instrumental Program was given new life and was strengthened.