The Florida Gulf Coast University Foundation announced the election of two board members and inducted three members as Foundation Fellows at its quarterly meeting Wednesday on June 6.
Newly elected board members will serve four-year terms. New members include:
· Kimberly Reese is a partner with RiteAire TEK, a distributor of RiteAire TEK Know-It-All plugs, which monitors air, power and water leaks on yachts using cellular technology. Reese moved with her husband to Fort Myers from Indiana, where he founded Cadence Environmental Energy. Reese served on the FGCU Foundation Development Committee as a community representative.
· Nancy Wickham began her career at Pfizer, Inc. after graduating from Pomona College in California. While working in marketing at IBM in Tampa, she met her husband, Jeff. A native New Yorker, Wickham has been a full-time resident of Sanibel since 2010.
Three board members have been elected as Foundation Fellows, an elite group of longtime donors and advocates for the Foundation. New Fellows are:
· W. Bernard Lester, Ph.D., rotating off the Foundation board, served the University over the course of 25 years in many roles, including the FGCU Board of Trustees, Foundation Board of Directors and the Financing Corporation Board, to name a few. Lester and Ben Hill Griffin III were instrumental in gifting, from Alico Corporation, the 760 acres of land on which FGCU sits. Further gifts from Lester and Alico have supported scholarships, professorships, chairs and Alico Arena.
· David Lucas, rotating off after eight years on the Foundation board, he also served 10 years on the FGCU Board of Trustees. Lucas is a distinguished founder of the university from its inception as a lead donor through an endowment supporting the Lucas Center for Real Estate and an endowment of the Lucas Center for Faculty Development. Lucas is an avid supporter of the annual Founder’s Cup golf tournament and has served on the Foundation’s Finance Committee.
· J. Dudley Goodlette, Esq., served on the Foundation board for 12 years and the FGCU Board of Trustees for six years. He served in the Florida House of Representatives, representing Collier County, 1998-2006, and as Chief of Staff to the Speaker of Florida House of Representatives, 2009-2011. Goodlette was interim President of Edison College (now Florida SouthWestern State College) in 2012.
Current officers of the FGCU Foundation Board of Directors are beginning their second year of a two-year term. They are as follows:
· David Holmes, Esq., chair, is an attorney and president of Farr, Farr, Emerich, Hackett, Carr and Holmes, PA in Punta Gorda.
· David Call, vice chair, is the regional president of Fifth Third Bank within Florida.
· Timothy Cartwright, treasurer, is a partner with Fifth Avenue Advisors, and serves as the managing director of Compass Advisory Group in Naples.
· Steve Magiera, assistant treasurer, is FGCU’s vice president for administrative services and finance.
· Kimberly Johnson, Esq., secretary, is the chair of the law firm Quarles & Brady in Naples.