Newsmakers: Baumeister to lead FW Chamber board

The Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce has elected its officers and directors for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Allyson Baumeister, principal at CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, was elected chairman. She also has held positions in national and small firms as well as practiced solo. Baumeister holds a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Texas A&M University.

Lonnie Nicholson was elected vice chairman. He is president and CEO of EECU and formerly was a chief operating officer and credit union service organization president. He has held a variety of leadership positions including chief financial officer, chief technology officer, vice president of lending and marketing director. Nicholson attended Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, and holds an MBA from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Martin Noto was elected Chamber treasurer. He is president and CEO of the Fort Worth Region for First Financial Bank. Previously he was executive vice president and corporate bank manager for BBVA Compass Bank in Fort Worth and regional executive vice president/corporate banking manager of Community Trust Bank. Noto holds an MBA in finance/accounting and a bachelor’s degree in marketing magna cum laude from the University of North Texas.

The Chamber’s board of directors has 48 members, one-third of whom are elected annually to serve three-year terms. New board members are:

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Charlie Campbell, senior vice president, finance and administration, Hillwood Properties; Richard Casarez, vice president/customer operations, Oncor Electric Delivery; Joseph Faust, regional public affairs director, BNSF Railway Co,; Robin Hamilton, chairman for the Fort Worth region, Texas Capital Bank; Eddie Hartfield, plant director, The Dannon Co.; William Jenkins, managing partner, Jackson Walker LLP; Andrew Lombardi, vice president, corporate counsel, Crescent Real Estate Equities LLC; Elizabeth McCoy, market area manager, Williams Trew Real Estate; Fred Maldonado, vice president-external and legislative affairs, AT&T; Joanne Massey, comptroller, Sundance Square; Ben Perryman, search consultant, WhitneySmith Co.; Andrea Puente, site coordinator, Facebook; Nick Salomone, senior vice president, middle market banking manager, Wells Fargo; and Terry Smith, chief lending officer, Southwest Bank – West Seventh Street.

ADVERTISING

Jennifer Riddle has been promoted to digital media director at Balcom Agency. She was previously digital media specialist. She brings 18 years of experience to her new management position, in which she will oversee strategy and fulfillment of all digital campaigns for the agency’s clients, as well as manage and grow the Balcom digital media team.

Riddle will maintain her second alias, “OCDigital.” Her quirky Balcom nickname is a reference to her passion for all things digital and her obsession with achieving perfection in her work for clients.

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ARCHITECTURE

Mark H. Dabney has been promoted to principal at BOKA Powell. He has led BOKA Powell’s Fort Worth office since 2014 and has more than 25 years of architectural and interior design experience in and around Tarrant County. He has been project manager and project architect on a variety of projects including educational, corporate and industrial projects. His current client list includes Sundance Management, Pinnacle Bank, Tarrant County College District, Fort Worth Housing Solutions, Kite Realty, Hillwood and the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau.

BOARDS & ORGANIZATIONS

Kurt Crawford has joined the American Paint Horse Association as director of business development. Crawford previously was executive director of the Pacific Coast Cutting Horse Association, senior sales executive at the National Cutting Horse Association, director of equine operations at M3 Companies and director of sales and marketing at Rancharrah development in Reno, Nevada.

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Kubota Tractor Corp. has announced the newest members of its National Dealer Advisory Board, including Larry Zimmerer of Zimmerer Kubota & Equipment to represent its Division Board for Product Support.

EDUCATION

Linda Mihalick of Flower Mound received a Career Achievement Award from The Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology. Mihalick is the senior director of Global Digital Retailing Research at the University of North Texas.

HEALTH CARE

Dr. Sealy Massingill is the new chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. Massingill will oversee clinical staff at health centers in Austin, Corsicana, Dallas, Denton, Fort Worth, Waco, Paris, Tyler and surrounding communities, in addition to providing direct patient care at the Southwest Fort Worth health center.

INSURANCE

Houston-based Wortham Insurance has merged Lucien Wright Insurance Services Inc. into the firm’s partnership. Lucien Wright was founded in 1937 as an independent agency in Fort Worth. Scott Finks, president, and Bill Merritt, executive vice president, of Lucien Wright, will join Wortham’s ownership team of managing directors. Wortham, founded in Houston in 1915, is one of the largest independent brokers headquartered in Texas.

MEDIA

Anne Elise Parks is joining the CBS 11 news team as weekend evening meteorologist beginning July 3. Parks was most recently weekend meteorologist/co-host at KTVI-TV in St. Louis. Prior to that, she was the morning/midday meteorologist for WTWO/WAWV in Terre Haute, Indiana. Parks holds a bachelor’s degree in geoscience from Mississippi State University, where she graduated with honors.

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, along with 29 sister NBC and Telemundo-owned stations, was honored with the Love Amplified Award at the Petco Foundation’s Annual Awards Gala held in San Diego, California, on May 19. The stations were recognized for their nationwide pet adoption efforts through their annual Clear the Shelters initiative. The award recognized Clear the Shelters as a marketing and outreach effort that has resulted in more than 70,000 pets finding new homes since the effort began nationally in 2015.

Clear the Shelters began in the Dallas-Fort Worth market in 2014 as a partnership between NBC 5 and Telemundo 39 and dozens of North Texas animal shelters. The 2014 effort resulted in the adoption of more than 2,200 homeless animals, the most adopted in one day in North Texas. Last year, more than 50,000 pets were adopted after more than 50 local NBC and Telemundo stations teamed with over 700 animal shelters across the country and in Puerto Rico to offer a combination of traditional and waived adoption fees for this event. This year Clear the Shelters will be held on Aug. 19.

NONPROFITS

Larry Cannon has joined the American Heart Association as chief administrative officer at its national headquarters in Dallas. Cannon will oversee the enterprise business operations of the 93-year-old nonprofit. He will also be responsible for the AHA’s technology, human resources, facilities and other strategic business investments and operations. Cannon most recently was the chief administrative officer, general counsel, chief compliance officer and corporate secretary for FTS International Inc. in Fort Worth. Cannon began his career as a certified public accountant with Ernst & Young LLP. He is an alumnus of Baylor University in Waco and the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.

TRANSPORTATION

Nathan J. Gatten has been named senior vice president–government affairs for American Airlines.

Send newsmakers to Robert Francis at rfrancis@bizpress.net.