UTA names 5 distinguished alumni
The University of Texas at Arlington will honor five alumni on Nov. 10 for their commitment to the university and their community engagement. The 2016 recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award are: Tarrant County Judge B. Glen Whitley, BBA ’76 (Distinguished Alumni and Community Service Award); C. Keith Cargill, MBA ‘81; Maj. Gen. Daniel P. Hughes, BA ‘83; Liz Johnson, MS ‘89; and Dr. Jocelyn Zee, BS ‘04.
Whitley presides over the Tarrant County Commissioners Court. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve and co-founded accounting firm Whitley Penn in 1983. He was elected a county commissioner in 1996 and judge in 2006. Whitley is a member of the Government Accounting Standards Advisory Council, served as president of both the National Association of Counties and the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and was chairman of the Regional Transportation Council, the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, and the Public Employee Benefits Cooperative. He is a member of UT Arlington’s President’s Advisory Board and the university’s Department of Accounting Advisory Council.
Cargill, a 30-year banking veteran, was a founding member of Texas Capital Bank in 1998. Prior to that, he was president of Cargill Lakes Inc., a venture capital investment company, and was executive operating officer of Mack Financial Group Inc. Cargill is president and CEO at Texas Capital Bank and Texas Capital Bancshares Inc. Cargill is a member of UT Arlington’s President’s Advisory Board and has served on the advisory board of the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, the Dallas Crystal Charity Ball and HopeXChange.
Hughes earned his master’s degree from the Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy at the National Defense University. After his commissioning in 1983 as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery, he served in multiple company-grade artillery positions and transitioned into the Army Acquisition Corps after deploying to Operation Desert Storm. Hughes served as deputy commanding general for support in Kabul, Afghanistan, and as the army’s program executive officer for command at Aberdeen Proving Ground. He currently is a director for test at the Missile Defense Agency.
Johnson is the chief information officer for Acute Care Hospitals and Applied Clinical Informatics for Tenet Health. Since 2009, she has been the leader of Tenet’s I.M.P.A.C.T. (Improving Patient Care through Technology) program, which addresses health care reform. In October, she received a fellowship with the American Academy of Nursing.
Zee, the recipient of UT Arlington’s first Recent Graduate Alumni Award, was the school’s youngest student at the time of her enrollment at age 13. She earned her doctor of osteopathic medicine degree at the University of North Texas Health Science Center Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed a residency program in family medicine at John Peter Smith Hospital and was hired as a hospitalist and critical care physician there. She chairs the Physician Excellence Committee at JPS. Zee will participate in the JPS Physician Leadership Program and continue speaking with pre-health freshman interest groups at UT Arlington.Cambria hotel & suites Southlake DFW North
Banking & Finance
Brandt Self, a member of the agribusiness group at CliftonLarsonAllen LLP’s Fort Worth office, has been promoted to a principal for the firm. Self has spent more than seven years in public accounting working with corporations, partnerships, limited liability corporations and individuals. He is active in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Fort Worth Chapter of the TSCPA. He is a member of the Dallas Ag Club and of the CLA campus recruiting team at his alma mater, the University of North Texas.
Valliance Bank recently opened a banking center in Fort Worth, with Shelby Bruhn as president. He has over 15 years of banking experience. Prior to joining Valliance, Bruhn was executive vice president and advisory board member at Platinum Bank in Southlake.
Education
Marine scientist Quenton R. Dokken is the new executive director of the Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research at Tarleton State University. The institute addresses water-quality concerns along the North Bosque River. Dokken most recently was president and CEO of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, where he served 25 years promoting and facilitating conservation of the Gulf and its resources. He also was associate director of the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Center for Coastal Studies and executive director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Gulf of Mexico Regional Marine Research Program. Dokken is an adviser to the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, the Texas Sea Grant Program and the Texas General Land Office.
Government
The city of Colleyville hired Mark Wood as executive director of economic development and communications. Wood previously was economic development director at the Town of Flower Mound.
Honors & Awards
State Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound) received the inaugural Patient Safety Advocacy Award from the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Nelson’s support for a culture change around safety in health care led to the creation of the Institute for Patient Safety at UNTHSC. The institute opened this year with support from education, research and patient care entities across Fort Worth. Its founding partners, in addition to UNTHSC, are JPS Health Network, Cook Children’s Medical Center and Texas Christian University.
Ultrasound technician Summer Myles and MRI supervisor Anthony Carter, both employed by Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth, have been named to the “Top 25 Technologists 2016” list by the North Texas Radiologic Technologist Society. They will be honored in a ceremony in Fort Worth on Nov. 5.
Tim Buchanan, athletic director for Aledo Independent School District, received the 2016 Bayard H. Friedman Hero Award as the most outstanding coach-athletic director in North Texas. The award is presented by Score A Goal In The Classroom School Incentive Program. Buchanan started his career in Aledo in 1993. He stepped down from coaching to become athletic director in 2014. During his coaching career, his football teams had 227 wins, 53 losses and 3 ties.
Hospitality
Two hospitality veterans joined the management team at the Cambria hotel & suites Southlake DFW North which is opening in December. Ethelyn Tysen has been named assistant general manager and Lindsey Snell is director of sales and marketing. Tysen has 16 years of hospitality experience, most recently as director of front office operations at the Omni Mandalay in Irving, where she supervised a staff of 28. During that time, she achieved the top associate survey score in 2015. Tysen also was front office manager at the Marriott in Huntsville, Alabama, and was a member of the executive team. She was operations manager at Tranquility Bay, Jolly Harbor, Antigua, and prior to that she spent six years at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort in Florida as sales/catering manager and assistant front office manager.
Snell, with eight years of hospitality sales and management experience, will focus at Cambria Southlake on securing leisure guest reservations, corporate meetings and weddings. Most recently, Snell was sales and catering manager at Cambria hotel & suites in Plano, where she developed and implemented marketing programs for corporate group sales and banquets. She also had sales management positions at Norris Conference Centers in Fort Worth, Hampton Inn & Suites in Amarillo and Staybridge Suites in Lubbock. Snell began her hospitality career as a general manager and assistant general manager for properties in Texas and Oklahoma.
Law
Broude, Smith & Jennings PC added associate Lyndsey M. Cheek to the firm. Cheek has a general litigation practice with an emphasis on oil and gas and commercial disputes. She serves on the board for Cuisine for Healing.
Preston Dugas III joined the firm as of counsel and will handle litigation matters. Dugas’ primary practice includes oil and gas, commercial and business litigation. He is licensed in Texas and Louisiana.
Museums
Doug Roberts joined the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History as its first chief technology officer. Roberts comes to Fort Worth from Chicago, where he was director for the WorldWide Telescope project for the American Astronomical Society. Working with researchers at Microsoft, he also served as the architect for the project. Before that, Roberts held several positions at the Adler Planetarium, culminating as associate vice president and chief technology officer. He also has been an adjunct associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University. In his new job, he will oversee the creation of experiences for museumgoers in the new Academy of Digital Learning. He also will work with the museum’s curators and designers to use technology to enhance learning experiences throughout the museum, in the Noble Planetarium and online. In addition, he will work with the museum’s education team to create resources and programs for educators and other professionals interested in digital learning.
Real Estate
Rattikin Title Co. added Haddy Manuel as the new resident sales manager. She previously held sales and management positions at Holland Services, Cook Children’s Health Foundation, JP Morgan Private Bank and Kelly, Hart & Hallman LLP.
Jackie Fraker Marshall joined CBRE’s office agency leasing team in Dallas as a vice president specializing in marketing and leasing office projects in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. Marshall started her career in commercial real estate in CBRE’s Dallas office in 2008. She later joined CBRE’s Atlanta office and most recently worked with CBRE’s Midtown Manhattan office.
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