Walter Negley

Walter Negley is president of WN Global, a holding company for two heavy industrial product manufacturing concerns based in Houston, Texas. Other business affiliations include past board member of Highland Resources, a family owned real estate company founded by Herman and George R. Brown, and the A. S. Gage Ranch, founded by family members in Brewster and Presidio Counties in West Texas in 1883. Walter has served as a board trustee for the Kinkaid School, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Neuhaus Center, and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Walter graduated from Trinity University in 1977 with a B.A. in Economics and attended the MBA program at the University of Texas at Austin. Walter grew up in San Antonio and now resides in Houston with his wife, Suzette, and three daughters.

Joseph Havel

Joseph Havel is a world-renowned artist who lives and works in Houston, Texas. In addition to his studio practice, Havel is Director of the Glassell School of Art and its acclaimed Core Residency Program. He has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe including solo museum exhibitions at The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead U.K., The Museum Of Fine Arts, Houston, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, The Center for Contemporary Art, Kiev, and The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard, New York. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including the 2000 Whitney Biennial.  His work is in public collections in the U.S. and abroad including The Whitney Museum, New York, The Modern Museum of Fort Worth, The Pompidou Center, Paris, The National Gallery, Washington, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium, The Ministry of Culture, Paris, The Menil Collection, Houston, The Dallas Museum of Art, Rice University, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  He has received a National Endowment of The Arts Fellowship in 1987, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Fellowship in 1995, Artadia Award in 2005. He was the 2013 Texas Visual Artist as recognized by the Texas Legislature and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Dr. Gordon “Nick” Mueller

Dr. Gordon “Nick” Mueller is President and CEO Emeritus of The National World War II Museum.  Dr. Mueller assisted historian Stephen Ambrose in founding the institution, initially known as The National D-Day Museum, and led the organization as Chairman of the Board from 1998 through its fundraising and construction to the Grand Opening on June 6, 2000. Before stepping into his second career in the museum world, Dr. Mueller enjoyed a 33-year career as Professor of European History at the University of New Orleans. During his tenure there he also served as Dean, Vice Chancellor and founding President of the Research and Technology Park. He is known as founder of UNO’s Metropolitan College, its regional campuses, Business-Higher Education Council, and the university’s International Study Programs, sending over 10,000 students to 10 countries for study abroad since 1973.  He also served in leadership positions with national higher education associations and is a member of the University Continuing Education Hall of Fame. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Stetson University, an MA and PhD at the University of North Carolina, and has done postgraduate work at Yale, Harvard and several European Universities.

Jean Malo

Jean Malo is a Managing Director and Manager of the International Equity and Global Equity Portfolios at Avalon Advisors. Jean has over 30 years of domestic and international investment management experience. During his career, he has worked and lived in Houston, New York, France, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. Prior to joining Avalon, Jean spent four years as Co-Founder of Houston Global Investors, a Houston-based Registered Investment Advisor, where he managed both global and international equity portfolios. Prior to Houston Global Investors, Jean was Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Breen Investors LP for eight years. From 2005 until its takeover by Johnson & Johnson in 2017, he was a board member and a member of the finance and audit committee of Actelion, the largest biopharmaceutical company in Europe. Jean is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society Houston. Jean has his M.B.A., from Essec, France and he attended Lycée Louis le Grand in Paris.

David Rice Lummis

David Rice Lummis is a co-founder of Houston Trust Company. He currently serves as President and CEO, chairman of the Trust Committee, and the Company’s chief investment officer. For seven years prior to the formation of the Houston Trust Company, he oversaw stock and bond portfolios, operating businesses, real estate, litigation support and estate planning for a large Houston family office. He was also involved for several years as a Representative in concluding the Howard Hughes, Jr. administration. His investment management and capital markets experience includes four years as an investment banker in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions with Lazard Frères & Co. in New York. A native Houstonian, David holds a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University and Master of Business Administration and Masters of Accountancy degrees from Rice University.

Mari Carmen Ramírez

Mari Carmen Ramírez is the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A globally renowned authority on modern and contemporary Latin American art, Ramírez has published extensively and curated numerous award-winning exhibitions, including Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America (with Héctor Olea). She’s also conceptualized and implemented the ICAA Documents of 20th Century Latin American and Latino Art Project, a major digital archive and book series focused on primary sources. Since her arrival at the museum in 2001, Ms. Ramírez has led a long-term transformation in the appreciation and understanding of Latin American and Latino visual arts in the United States and abroad through acquisitions, research, exhibitions, publications, and a free online digital archive. In 2005 Ramírez received the Award for Curatorial Excellence granted by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. That same year, TIME magazine named her one of “The 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.”

Gwen Strauss

Executive Director