Longtime city of Fort Worth executive Robert Sturns has been appointed director of economic development for the city.
Sturns served as interim director after previous director Jay Chapa became an assistant city manager in July 2015.
Sturns has more than 20 years of leadership experience in city government, commercial real estate and banking. He has been with the city of Fort Worth for more than 12 years collectively. Sturns was previously the economic development manager for the city of Arlington and had leadership roles with Bank One and Fort Worth Town Center. He is a certified economic development finance professional through the National Development Council.
Sturns’ experience in public service extends to military service as a U.S. Army Reserve field artillery captain with an honorable discharge in 2001.
He is on the board for the American Red Cross-Chisholm Trail Chapter, the Multicultural Alliance and Fort Worth South Inc. He is a member of the Texas Economic Development Council, Urban Land Institute and Leadership Fort Worth, and is a past president of the Greater Fort Worth Area Economic Development Association.
Banking & Finance
Tricia Haber joined Rhodes Securities Inc. as a financial consultant and will lead a team at the newly opened Haber Wealth Management site, the fifth Rhodes Securities location across Texas and Oklahoma. Haber, a licensed life and health insurance agent in Texas, worked with Merrill Lynch from 2003-2015. She was president of The Parenting Center in 2013, has been president of Aledo Education Foundation since 2015, and has served on the boards of the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth and Samaritan House.
Boards & Organizations
Dinah Menger, the Fort Worth Independent School District’s director of choral and elementary music, is the new president of the Texas Music Educators Association. Before coming to Fort Worth ISD, Menger taught at Baylor University and spent 18 years as the director of choral activities at Arlington High School in the Arlington Independent School District. She has performed solo work for John Rutter, Sir John Nelson and the late Roger Wagner as a member of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Oratorio Chorus and spent four years as a professional commercial jingle singer for Wind Wheel Productions. She has received the AWARE Foundation Secondary Teacher of the Year award and was a featured director for the national Choir Director Magazine.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission appointed attorney Patrick Reardon to its Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. Reardon has practiced in corporate, securities, mergers and acquisitions law and related legal topics for 38 years. He spent 20 years in large Dallas-Fort Worth law firms before starting The Reardon Firm, a boutique law firm for businesses and investors.
W. Douglas Jennings was elected vice chairman of the Real Estate Center’s advisory committee. Jennings is a vice president and principal for William C. Jennings Co. He is a member and past commercial chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors, member and past governmental affairs chairman of the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors (GFWAR), member and past chairman of the Society of Commercial Realtors, and a member of the National Association of Realtors. In 2004, Jennings was named GFWAR’s Realtor of the Year. He received the Lone Star Trophy Award in 1997 for the year’s most outstanding commercial transaction in Texas, and the Charles D. Tandy Award for most outstanding commercial Realtor in 2002.
Officers for the North Texas Roofing Contractors Association are: President Matt Hines, MRB Contractors; Past President AJ Huckaby, Springtree Roofing and Restoration; President-elect Holly Green, Brettco Roofing; and Treasurer Jo Ann Moreno, GAF. Other board members are: Gina Beakley, Adam Buttorff, Charles Cross Jr., Darcy Dierking, Paul Duncan, Mike Huddleston, Bo Jackson, Chad Lacefield, Matt Moody, Bryan Pinder, Dan Pitts and Matt Skipper. Ex-officio board advisers are Mike Buttrey, Karen Ensley, Nick Febo and Craig Rainey.
The new officers and board members of BAC Education Foundation Inc. are: Chairman Lucas Sawyer, Vice Chairman Ed Riefenstahl, Treasurer Alberto Rios, Secretary Michael Schneider, Gwen Barbee, Brittany Brookens, William Giron, Ricky McBride, Jan Norton, Marc Richards, Jim Tanksley and Tamela Thornton.
Engineering & Construction
Baird, Hampton & Brown Inc. promoted Shonnah Driver to associate and marketing director and Chris Franke,- Gibran Michel and Josh Wargo to project managers; and hired Karen Stafford-Brown as project manager in the firm’s Grapevine office. Driver has been with BHB for more than seven years and is the immediate past president of the Society for Marketing Professional Services-Fort Worth Chapter. Franke, who serves the Grapevine office, began his career at BHB as a graduate civil engineer and has seven years of engineering experience. Michel has been with BHB for almost 20 years in the Fort Worth office and was the first LEED certified employee at the firm. Wargo graduated from the Air Force Academy and then served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force. He is a registered professional land surveyor at BHB’s Grapevine office. Stafford-Brown previously was an engineering manager for a regional provider of water and sewer services and has more than 20 years of engineering experience focused on water and wastewater utilities, watershed issues and urban planning.
Government
Fort Worth’s Park & Recreation Department selected Reginald Hurd as the new assistant director for the department’s recently formed Recreation Division. Hurd will manage Log Cabin Village and the Fort Worth Nature Center & Wildlife Refuge as well as the city’s 14 recreation centers, youth athletics, aquatics and after-school programming. Hurd has nearly 30 years of experience in the recreation field.
Honors & Awards
The Colleyville Area Chamber of Commerce presented the following awards at its 40th annual Awards Luncheon: Citizen of the Year, Nancy Dennis; Leadership Award, Marty Wieder; Youth of the Year, Jenny Foster; Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District Employee of the Year, Jamie Haliburton; Business of the Year, Bear Creek Spirits & Wine, Randy Johnson; Member of the Year, Janet Smith; Outstanding Service Award, Rotary Club of Colleyville; New Member of the Year, Josh Shronce; Jack Oswald Ambassador of the Year, Becky Cannon; Chairman’s Award, Genny Hale; and President’s Award, Connie Ingram.
The North Texas Roofing Contractors Association honored Judy Smith of Lon Smith Roofing as Industry Leader of the Year and John Gibson of C-CAP as Associate of the Year at the organization’s annual awards banquet. This year’s Golden Hammer Award for Community Service went to Brettco Roofing for work on the Sharon Thompson residence and Supreme Roofing for the Sunshine Village project. Commercial contractors winning a Golden Hammer Award were Castro Roofing for work on the Southern Methodist University Owen Arts Center, KPost Co. for work on the AT&T Stadium logo and Supreme Roofing for work on Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Irving. Residential contractors awarded a Golden Hammer were Buzz Roofing & Construction for work on the Guinnup residence, Roofing Giant for work on the Schmaltz residence and Showtime Exteriors for work on the Granger residence. Scott Exteriors received the second annual Green Roofing Golden Hammer Award for work on a LEED home.
Balfour Beatty Construction and its BARC joint venture partners, including Azteca Enterprises, H.J. Russell & Co. and CARCON Industries, received a national award for the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Terminal A Phase II Renovation and Improvement Program. Engineering News-Record recognized the project with its “Best of the Best Projects” award in the Airport/Transit category.
Lausanne Learning Institute, an international think tank for schools, named The Oakridge School its 2016 Spotlight School. The award recognizes the most innovative independent school, from technology integration to student-centered curriculum, culminating in a special recognition at the institute’s summer conference in Memphis, Tennessee.
Dollamur Sport Surfaces will serve as the official mat supplier of the 2016 USA Wrestling Olympic Trials and 12 high school state championships. Dollamur manufactures and distributes high-performance sports surfaces for wrestling, martial arts, mixed martial arts, gymnastics, cheerleading and yoga.
Nonprofit Organizations
Robert Hamilton is the new director of programs at Clayton Youth Enrichment Services. Hamilton comes to Clayton YES! from the YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth, where he was director of child care services since 2012. He began his nonprofit career as a child care director for a YMCA in California.
Performing Arts
Mark Saville, formerly senior development consultant and director of development for the Arizona Opera, has been appointed director of development for the Fort Worth Opera. Saville joined the Arizona Opera in 2012 after serving as a program administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Vietnam and a junior program officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Jordan.
Technology
Danny Dunn has been named head of sales for TelePacific Communications’ Fort Worth office. He most recently was vice president of sales for Verify Systems and brings more than 30 years of executive leadership to TelePacific’s Texas operations.
Send newsmakers to Betty Dillard at bdillard@bizpress.net
