Parks Blackwell
Digital marketing veteran Parks Blackwell has joined Fort Worth-based PAVLOV as chief operating officer and senior vice president of digital.
Blackwell will be responsible for day-to-day agency operations and management of the 32-person firm, will lead the expansion of digital strategy and media capabilities, and will help guide the company’s growth via new service offerings.
Previously, Blackwell was senior vice president and West Coast managing director for the global digital media company iPro-spect, where she managed an operation of more than 150 staff and $200 million in annual billings. At iProspect, she also led new business development as vice president of new business and marketing, working with clients such as Apple, Intel, Gucci, Gap, Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield and Choice Hotels.
Parks is a Fort Worth native and earned her bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of North Texas.
“This is an extraordinary new hire for our firm and our clients. Parks is an integral piece of a bigger vision for PAVLOV as we continue to evolve to best serve the modern marketplace,” said Allen Wallach, founder and CEO at PAVLOV. “Her extensive knowledge and experience at the highest level will make an im-mediate, positive impact on current clients and help to attract new ones, as well.”
Blackwell said, “As the lines between digital and traditional mar-keting have blurred, PAVLOV clients have a tremendous oppor-tunity to extend their reach and drive tangible growth through dig-ital inclusion in their brand ideation, strategy and media planning.”
Project Partners adds Miller
Cynthia Miller, who spent 16 years at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce as vice president for workforce development, has joined the Fort Worth-based consulting and project management firm Project Partners as a senior associate.
Miller also has experience with Bank of America, Bank of Ameri-ca Foundation and Bechtel Corp. She holds a doctorate in edu-cational leadership from the University of Texas at Arlington and has been a consultant for the Fort Worth Independent School District.
Since 1995, Project Partners has worked with nonprofit, corpo-rate and community leaders to provide community relations, event management, program development, fundraising and vol-unteer engagement services.
“Our business and education partnerships division continues to attract work from key education foundations, public school sys-tems, community college districts, universities, private schools, corporations, workforce boards, educational nonprofits, plus col-laborations of the same,” Lerii F. Smith, founder and president of Project Partners, said in a news release. “We are thrilled that Cynthia has joined our team to dedicate her expertise to this im-portant work in our community.”
Miller worked for Bank of America in California and Texas and led the Bank of America Foundation for Texas, distributing more than $5.5 million annually to nonprofit organizations.
– FWBP Staff
GE Latin America exec
to head GE Transportation
GE announced that Rafael Santana, president and CEO of GE Latin America, has been named president and CEO of GE Transportation, effective Nov. 1.
With over 17 years of GE experience, Santana held leadership positions in GE Oil & Gas, Power and Transportation before be-coming the president and CEO of GE in Latin America. He has worked closely with the regional business leaders to make Latin America one of GE’s largest and fastest-growing regions. Prior to joining GE, Santana held leadership positions at ExxonMobil and British American Tobacco.
John Flannery, chairman and CEO of GE, said, “Rafael has deep roots in GE Transportation, having spent eight years in a variety of commercial and product management roles, as well as leading the Transportation team in Latin America. His experience helping teams navigate through this tough market, combined with his deep global, operational, services and industrial experience, make him the perfect fit for this role. I look forward to working with him closely.”
Santana succeeds Jamie Miller, who will become chief financial officer of GE on Nov. 1 after two years at the helm.
GE Transportation has several operations in Fort Worth, includ-ing a locomotive plant and a mining equipment plant.
BANKING & FINANCE
Ryan A. Dignum has joined Dignum Financial Partners as a certified financial planner professional. He will provide compre-hensive financial planning specializing in tax and investment planning. Previously he worked to develop advanced financial plans for clients and provided financial software training to ad-visers with First Command Financial Services.
BOARDS & COMMISSIONS
The Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) has re-elected Christene Moss of the Fort Worth Independent School District board of trustees to a three-year term on the TASB board of directors, representing Region 11, position B.
Moss was elected to the Fort Worth ISD board in 1990 and is currently second vice-president. She also is the president-elect of the Texas Caucus of Black School Board Members.
Gov. Greg Abbott has reappointed Mike Jones and appointed Bob D. Morgan, Mala Sharma and J.P. Steelman to the Texas Commission on Fire Protection for terms set to expire on Feb. 1, 2023. The commission develops and enforces statewide fire service standards and provides education and assistance to the industry.
Jones is a battalion chief and training officer for the City of Bur-leson Fire Department and an adjunct instructor with Tarrant County College and Southwest Adventist University. He is presi-dent of the Burleson Professional Firefighters Association and a member of the Texas State Association of Firefighters and Inter-national Association of Firefighters. Jones attended Tarrant County College and received his fire protection certification from the Kilgore College Fire Academy.
Morgan is the senior fire protection engineer with the Fort Worth Fire Department. He is a member of the International Building Code Fire Safety Committee, six technical committees with the National Fire Protection Association and the North Central Texas Council of Governments and is chairman of its Fire Advisory Board. He is a member and past president of the Fire Prevention Association of North Texas and Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. Morgan received a bache-lor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M Univer-sity.
Leadership Fort Worth announced its board of directors for 2017-2018.
New board members include Nate Brown of Jacobs and Ben Robertson of Thos. S. Byrne Ltd., who will represent Leader-shipClass, Leadership Fort Worth’s program for established leaders. Peyton Salaverria of Gill Children’s Services is the new representative of LeadingEdge’s Board Shadow program, which lets emerging leaders serve on local nonprofit boards for one year of shadowing. Charlie Fowler of Stantec and Mary Yetto of BDO are new board members at-large.
Returning officers include Robert Allen, president; Doug Wilson, president-elect and secretary; Jason Byrne, treasurer; and Mark Dabney, past president.
Returning board members include Drenda Witt, board member emeritus, and at-large representatives Elizabeth Alaniz-Bolton, Chris Brim, Jared Cobb, Lauren Doeren, Courtney Garner-Lewis, Ramon Guajardo Jr., Curvie Hawkins, Georgina Johnson, Paula Parrish, Susan Roberts, Colby Walton, Sato-ya Williams and Dawn Zieger.
HONORS & AWARDS
Lyda Hill received the annual Dennis K. Stone Life Science Achievement Award at the third annual Life Science Summit, sponsored by bioNorth TX and The University of Texas at Arling-ton. Hill is a Dallas entrepreneur, philanthropist and contributor to the life sciences and health care. The summit, held Oct. 12, fea-tured presentations from top industry, community and education leaders. Topics included innovation to commercialization, inno-vation to collaboration and partnering, innovation to capital and others.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized the City of Fort Worth with a 2017 WaterSense Excellence Award as a leader in water conservation efforts. Fort Worth was honored at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference. It was one of six cities nationwide to receive an Excellence Award in promoting the WaterSense Program, which helps residents use water more ef-ficiently.
LAW
Jeffrey H. Chesnut, whose practice focuses on public finance, economic development and municipal law, has joined the Un-derwood Law Firm in Fort Worth as a senior associate.
Chesnut formerly worked in the Dallas City Attorney’s office, where during the past three years he advised the city on public finance and bond compliance matters and provided counsel to the economic development and housing departments. He ad-vised on transactions financed with incentives, negotiated public-private partnerships and advised on special entity formation, TIF and PID financing and tax credit financing.
REAL ESTATE
Champions DFW Commercial Realty LLC has added Lon Lloyd as director of investment sales and Matt Fahey as a sales and leasing associate.
Send newsmakers to Robert Francis at rfrancis@bizpress.net.