People: American Osteopathic Association president

Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations

Genius House Media hired Rick Anderson as motion graphics animator. He has 20 years of experience in animated productions, having supported filming and editing on projects in the United States and Europe. Anderson worked with Genius House as a contractor for three years before joining the company full time.

Banking & Finance

TPG Real Estate Finance Trust Inc., the real estate debt origination and acquisition platform of global alternative asset firm TPG, named Peter Smith as managing director and head of originations. Smith most recently was managing director at Ladder Capital Corp. He will start at TRT in late November and will be based in the firm’s New York office. Smith has more than 25 years of commercial real estate lending experience, having previously had senior positions with Credit Suisse, UBS and Heller Financial. His experience in the debt sector includes transitional loans, mezzanine loans, long-term fixed-rate loans, loan portfolio acquisitions, and workouts and restructurings.

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Boards & Organizations

Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Ben Gatzke to the board of the Department of Information Resources for a term to expire Feb. 1, 2017. Gatzke is president and CEO of Total Management Inc. He is a member of the Jewel Charity and the Baylor University School of Music board.

Brittany George, -a senior manager in information technology advisory services in the Dallas office of Weaver, is the newly elected president of the ISACA North Texas Chapter. A certified information systems auditor and qualified security assessor, George has more than 12 years of experience in IT auditing and consulting. She joined Weaver in 2008 after working at KPMG in the information technology advisory practice. Prior to that, she was with TXU/Capgemini Energy in the IT department.

Dr. Mark A. Baker, a University of North Texas Health Science Center alumnus and educator, is president-elect of the American Osteopathic Association. Baker, a recently retired radiologist, will assume the presidency in July. He will be the first Texas physician to lead the organization since 1986. Baker was named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 1995, earned the Dean’s Award for Philanthropy in 2006 and received the Founder’s Medal. He has been a leader in the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association and the American Osteopathic College of Radiology. Prior to retirement, he was president of Western Radiology in Hurst.

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Education

Glaucoma researcher Thomas Yorio stepped down Oct. 21 as UNT Health Science Center’s provost and executive vice president of academic affairs. Claire Peel, the current vice provost of academic resources and dean of the School of Health Professions, will serve as interim provost until Yorio’s replacement is found. Nicoleta Bugnariu, associate dean of the School of Health Professions, will become the school’s interim dean.

Yorio joined UNTHSC as an eye researcher and assistant professor in 1977, seven years after the university was founded as the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. He guided the expansion of TCOM into a health science center by serving as founding dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which opened in 1993. He also was interim dean of the School of Public Health. Yorio is a Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, where he served as a trustee and vice president and received its Distinguished Service Award. In 2014, he received the Ernst H. Barany Prize from the International Society for Eye Research in recognition of his contributions to ocular pharmacology.

Peel joined UNTHSC in 2013 from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where she spent six years as associate dean for the School of Health Professions and four years as associate provost for faculty development and faculty affairs.

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Honors & Awards

At its annual awards and installation banquet, the Greater Fort Worth Builders Association installed Gary Nordling of The Residential Group Inc. as the organization’s 2016-2017 president; inducted Fred Parker of Fred Parker Co. Inc. into the Fort Worth Housing Hall of Honor; named Jeff Avery of Avery Homes LLC as 2016 Builder of the Year; and named Tiffany Acree of StrucSure Home Warranty as 2016 Associate of the Year.

Chris Kyle will be posthumously awarded the 2016 Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl Great American Patriot Award. Presented by Armed Forces Insurance, the award recognizes an individual’s exemplary service to the United States. The award will be accepted on his behalf by Kyle’s widow, Taya Kyle, during halftime of the 2016 Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl on Dec. 23.

Ari Firoozabadi, co-founder of Greysteel, a national commercial real estate investment services firm, has been named to Real Estate Forum’s 2016 50 Under 40 List.

Tarrant County College has been named one of the nation’s top producers of associate degrees, according to a recent report by Community College Week. TCC ranks No. 5 among all community colleges in the total number of associate degrees awarded to students in all disciplines. Including four-year schools, TCC ranks No. 9 among all U.S. colleges that confer associate degrees. TCC also ranks as a top granter of certificates, ranking No. 27 in conferring one-year certificates in all disciplines and No. 75 in conferring two-year certificates in all disciplines. The college has consistently ranked among the nation’s top 100 community colleges for the past decade.

Senior Care of Crowley and Weatherford Healthcare Center earned the 2016 Bronze Commitment to Quality Award from the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living for demonstrating their commitment to improving the quality of care for seniors and people with disabilities. The AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Program is based on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, which is the foundation of the metric-based quality initiative. The program helps providers of long-term and post-acute care services to reach their performance goals.

The Texas Workforce Commission named Klein Tools Inc. of Mansfield and Lockheed Martin Corp. of Fort Worth as finalists for the 2016 Texas Workforce Solutions Small Employer of the Year Award and Large Employer of the Year Award, respectively. The winners will be announced at the 20th annual Texas Workforce Conference Employer Award luncheon on Dec. 8 in Houston.

Real Estate

Michael Caffey, president of the Texas-Oklahoma division of CBRE Group Inc., will assume executive responsibility for the company’s Latin America business. He will be responsible for 13 offices owned by CBRE in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. Caffey also oversees CBRE’s business in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. He has led CBRE’s Texas-Oklahoma division since 2011 with responsibility for the strategic direction and performance of all lines of business in the division’s 12 market areas.

Steve Donosky rejoined the Henry S. Miller Companies as president of HSM Dalcon Inc., the division specializing in land acquisition and single-family residential lot development. Donosky began his career at HSM as a college intern in 1979 and continued as an associate with the company until 1992. Prior to rejoining HSM, Donosky held managerial positions with Encore Enterprises Inc., KD Financial Inc., Donosky Real Estate Investments and the Steve Donosky Co. He has a Texas Real Estate Broker License and a CCIM professional designation and is active in both the National and North Texas CCIM chapters. He is a member of the Texas Homebuilders Association, the North Texas Commercial Association of Realtors, the MetroTex Association of Realtors, the Texas Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors.

Technology

Sabre Corp. appointed Alfred de Cárdenas as chief commercial officer of its Travel Network organization. With more than 28 years of experience in commercial strategy, operations and executive management, de Cárdenas will be responsible for leading global sales, sales operations and business development initiatives. He previously worked for telecommunications firm Nortel Networks as senior vice-president of global operations with assignments in Israel, Brazil and Colombia. Prior to joining Sabre, he was president of global sales and customer service for Syniverse Technologies, and he had numerous strategic positions as chief operations officer and general manager across the Americas.

Send Newsmakers to Betty Dillard at bdillard@bizpress.net