Sarah Leve

Owner, Strategist

Sarah is the owner of SurveyUSA. Her father, Jay Leve, founded the company in 1990 and ran it until his death in 2022.  

Sarah has worked in progressive organizing since 2020, where she was a Field Director for Working America (AFL-CIO). Since then, she has managed, directed, and developed leaders for outfits across the digital organizing space. 

Now, Sarah is exploring the intersection of data and progressive base building. There is enormous potential to use accurate and insightful data to develop stronger, more resilient, and more creative campaigns.

She’s excited to combine her background in organizing with SurveryUSA’s proven track record of accuracy and insight to help build the movements needed to meet this moment.

Ken Alper

President

Ken Alper is responsible for all aspects of SurveyUSA’s market research and public opinion polling projects, maintaining our high standards through a hands-on approach that ensures our clients return to us for project after project.

Ken joined SurveyUSA as a second-shift associate producer in 1994. His initial responsibilities included faxing poll results to clients. Time and technology marched on, and Ken progressed through roles of increasing responsibility before being named President of SurveyUSA in 2019.

Mary Jane Jacketti

Vice President, Market Research

Mary Jane Jacketti joined SurveyUSA in 1993 and is a keenly organized project manager who is responsible for running SurveyUSA’s market research practice. She has managed multiple thousands of market research projects, many of which seek out and interview hard-to-research populations. A trained, professional voiceover artist, Mary Jane also ensures that questions for SurveyUSA projects are written for easy comprehension, voiced professionally, and adhere to the highest standards.

Jay Leve, 1956-2022

Founder

Jay Leve founded SurveyUSA in 1990.

Jay revolutionized the public opinion polling and market research industries in the early 1990s when he and his founding partners began offering affordable, fast-turn, scientific polling to TV stations coast to coast, asking questions in the recorded voice of local news anchors. These innovations dramatically decreased the amount of time it took to conduct research and its cost, making it possible for the first time for individuals, companies, and organizations of any size to conduct scientific research.

Jay’s leadership won SurveyUSA national acclaim and international recognition for the quality of our question-writing and the accuracy of our results. Jay was a passionate believer in the importance of public opinion polling in our democracy, the need for researchers to respect respondents’ time, and the power new technologies gave us to better understand our world. He passed away in December 2022 and is deeply missed.