Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations
Katherine Garner joined GCG Marketing as account coordinator and Alli Sanzone joined as associate art director. Before joining GCG, Garner was an account executive at The Integer Group in Dallas. Promoted from project manager at the same agency, Garner led the AT&T account. Sanzone has been an intern with GCG since 2015 and prior to that, she was media director at Connect Church in Arlington and a creative intern at Ascend Concepts in Fort Worth.
PAVLOV Advertising promoted Claire Bloxom Armstrong, – from public relations manager to PR director. In her new role, she is responsible for overseeing the agency’s PR and social media teams and providing strategic guidance and direction in developing and executing PR and social media campaigns for clients. Armstrong began her career at Sunwest Communications and Cooper Smith Agency before joining PAVLOV. She has received multiple industry awards, including 11 Worthy Awards, a MarCom Gold Award for PR Programs, and two MarCom Platinum Awards. She is also vice president-membership/president-elect of the Greater Fort Worth Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.
Banking & Finance
Crestline Investors Inc. named Keith Williams a partner of the firm. Williams, who joined Crestline in 2012 as managing director and senior portfolio manager, is responsible for opportunistic and private credit strategies. Williams joined Crestline from McKinsey & Co., where he was a senior member of the recovery and transformation practice. Before that, he was a senior member of the special situations group at Goldman Sachs.
Boards & Organizations
Morgan Carter, coordinator of institutional effectiveness at Tarleton State University, has been selected to serve on the Local Employee Committee of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex State Employee Charitable Campaign (SECC). Carter, a nine-year Tarleton staff member, has been involved with the university’s SECC campaign, known on campus as “Pass the Hat,” for four years and will serve as this year’s chairman.
The Texas Mortgage Bankers Association elected Mary Pirrello as president for 2016-2017. Pirrello, a mortgage veteran of nearly 20 years, is senior vice president, national warehouse lending, with NexBank SSB. She started her career with Liberty Lending as a loan officer assistant and continued with Southwest Securities in 2007. She has served on the TMBA board and committees since 2007 and is a TMBA Future Leader.
Engineering & Construction
Garver added Nandita Kaundinya as a business team leader and project manager for the firm’s Texas transportation team. She has 13 years of transportation experience managing and designing infrastructure projects for the public sector, predominantly state transportation departments in Florida and Texas. Her recent experience includes projects to widen Interstate 45 and a new alignment for State Highway 190 for TxDOT. A licensed civil engineer, she has degrees in mechanical and industrial engineering and an MBA with a focus on corporate strategy and finance.
New hires at Peloton Land Solutions Inc. in Fort Worth are Denny Peters, senior project manager, and Tara Tibbetts, human resources manager, and in Frisco, Nathan Thompson, senior project manager. Peters has almost 25 years of experience in civil and environmental engineering with expertise in water resources and hydrology. At Peloton he is responsible for managing project budgets and schedules, contributing to business development and cultivating client relationships, among other areas. Peters is a registered professional engineer and professional hydrologist in Texas.
With 10 years of experience in the human resources arena, Tibbetts is responsible for the administration of benefit plans and procedures, overseeing personnel policies and procedures, maintaining the company’s compensation program and overseeing recruitment. She is an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Junior League of Fort Worth.
Thompson has 15 years of experience in private land development. He is responsible for developing and maintaining client relationships and projects, and he oversees the entitlement and engineering design process for projects from master-planned residential communities to small infill development. He will also assist developers in forming and administering special-purpose districts, while coordinating with municipalities on tax increment financing and tax increment reinvestment zones. He is a registered professional engineer in Texas and has been admitted to the State Bar of Texas.
SpawGlass hired Lloyd Faver as senior project manager and Randy Jones and Jake Pack as senior superintendents. Faver has more than 20 years of construction experience and will manage large, complex projects and supervise project managers. He is senior project manager for the University of Texas at Dallas Parking Structure Phase IV project and the Tarrant County Precinct 1 Maintenance Facility. Jones has more than 30 years of construction experience and will be responsible for the supervision, inspection, coordination and control of all construction activities at SpawGlass and will supervise area superintendents. Jones is senior superintendent for the Teague Nall & Perkins Interior Renovation project in Fort Worth. With nearly 30 years of construction experience, Pack also will be responsible for the supervision, inspection, coordination and control of construction activities and for supervising area superintendents. He is senior superintendent for the UTD parking structure project.
Health Care
John Corbeil joined Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth as its new chief operating officer. Corbeil was assistant administrator on Plaza Medical Center’s senior executive team from January 2013 to July 2014. He was then promoted to associate chief operating officer for Medical City Dallas and Medical City Children’s Hospital, all part of HCA North Texas. Prior to working at Plaza Medical Center as assistant administrator, Corbeil spent a year as an administrative fellow with HCA North Texas.
Honors & Awards
Doug Renfro, – president of Renfro Foods, was inducted into the Texas Food Processors Association Hall of Fame.
Westlake Academy named algebra teacher Elizabeth Nairon as Teacher of the Year. Nairon has been teaching math in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for 20 years.
Stacia Graves, elementary music teacher at Fort Worth Independent School District’s North Hi Mount Elementary School, is the 2016-17 Bayard H. Friedman Chair for Teaching Excellence in Performing Arts, and Cheryl Penland, theater teacher at Trimble Technical High School, has been selected as the Broadway at the Bass Chair for Teaching Excellence in Performing Arts in Theater and/or Dance. Graves, who has taught for 10 years, has been a leader on her campus for five years. Penland has taught for 28 years, 23 of those years at Trimble Tech.
Lon R. Williams, a shareholder with Polsinelli PC, has been recognized by Chambers USA, a legal industry rankings organization, for labor and employment in Texas.
Fort Worth ISD schools claimed top honors of the 2016 National Excellence in Urban Education Awards, given by the National Center for Urban School Transformation. South Hi Mount Elementary School won the gold award and a check for $5,000. Stripling Middle School took the silver award and a check for $2,500, while McLean Middle School earned the bronze award. Charles Nash, Carroll Peake and Westcliff Elementary schools all made the Honor Roll.
HCA presented a national HCA Innovators Award to Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth’s Megan Gallegos, administrative director of emergency services, and Shawn Lewis, clinical coordinator of emergency services, in the service excellence category. Gallegos and Lewis created an ER concierge position to improve patient service in the emergency department at Plaza Medical Center.
Edgar Jorge-Ortiz, an architect and teacher in career and technical education and in the Project Lead the Way program at Fort Worth ISD’s Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School, won a national design competition sponsored by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). His entry into AIA’s PlayHouzz 2016 design competition, titled “Explore Adventure,” is a playhouse concept incorporating climbing and sliding with ventilation and natural light. This winning design, and several others, will be built and donated to charities and nonprofit organizations benefiting children around the country.
The Near East Side Neighborhood Association (NESNA) is one of six finalists among 27 applicants competing for the national Neighborhoods USA Neighborhood of the Year Award. NESNA, Fort Worth’s 2015 Neighborhood of the Year, was recognized for its Women’s Outreach Initiative, which raised awareness of physical and sexual assaults against homeless women in the NESNA community.
Transportation
Greg Fox, executive vice president of operations at BNSF Railway, will retire at the end of August after more than 30 years with the railroad. Fox has served in that role since November 2010. He is succeeded by Dave Freeman, who will oversee the entire operations organization, including engineering, environmental, mechanical, operations support, transportation, safety and training, service design and resource protection.
Fox began his railroad career in 1984 as a corporate management trainee in Fort Worth. He had a variety of positions in operations, finance, strategic planning and information technology. Following the BNSF merger, Fox was promoted to assistant vice president in information systems in 1996 and played a key role in the implementation of BNSF’s Transportation Support System. He was named vice president, eBusiness, in October 1999. He was promoted to vice president of technology services and chief information officer and served in that role from April 2001 to September 2002.
Freeman has been senior vice president of transportation since April 2014. Previously, he was vice president of transportation and vice president of engineering. He began his career with BNSF in 2001 as assistant vice president, Fort Worth Service Region. He served as general manager, Gulf Division; general superintendent of transportation; and assistant vice president of intermodal and automotive operations. He was named assistant vice president and chief engineer, South Engineering Operations, in 2004 and was promoted to regional vice president, North Operations, in June 2006.
Send newsmakers to Betty Dillard at bdillard@bizpress.net