ABOUT OUR ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
Lee Cooke
Lee Cooke is an American politician and businessman. He served as Mayor of the City of Austin from 1988 to 1991, and was the Founder/CEO of Habitek International, as well as a former employee of Texas Instruments, and a former air force officer in the Vietnam War. Cooke served on Austin City Council for two terms, starting in 1977, and was President/CEO of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce from 1983 to 1987.
Greta Goldsby
Greta Goldsby is an Austin attorney with over thirteen years' experience representing entrepreneurial and institutional clients in connection with real estate and real estate finance transactions. Greta's legal experience includes all aspects of real estate, with an emphasis on acquisitions and dispositions of real property, development of real property, real estate secured loans, and commercial leasing transactions.
Greta received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, French, and European Studies from the University of Arkansas in 1998. She received a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from the Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law in 2001. She held the position as Staff Editor and Articles Editor at the International Law Review.
Jeff Hahn
Jeff Hahn is the owner and principal of Hahn Public. Jeff focuses on brand crafting, message development and crisis communications for the firm’s clients; he also leads the health systems practice area. He is a 26-year public relations practitioner.
Prior to joining the firm, Jeff was communications director at Freescale Semiconductor and public affairs director at Motorola Semiconductor. For those companies, as well as with Motorola’s corporate office in Schaumburg, Illinois, and Lockheed Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, he served in roles including government relations, media relations, crisis communication, analyst relations, business operations, employee communication, financial communication and executive communication.
Jeff serves on the Board of Advisors for the School of Communication Studies at Texas State University. He serves as a volunteer for the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and is a past Membership Committee Chair; he was also the Austin city campaign co-chair for the United Way campaign in 2010. Jeff has served on a number of nonprofit boards in the past including the World Congress on Information Technology, and he was Board Chair for LifeWorks in 2003 and for Keep Austin Beautiful in 1998 and 1999. He is also a 2002 graduate of Leadership Austin.
Jeff grew up on a farm in Iowa and moved to Texas in 1984 by enlisting in the United States Air Force. He served at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio where he completed an associate degree in administration, then graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1990 from The University of Texas at San Antonio. He is formally trained in persuasion communication and holds a master’s degree in communication studies at Texas State University.
Lee Leffingwell
A native Austinite, Lee Leffingwell graduated The University of Texas at Austin with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1961. Lee then served on active duty in the United States Navy as an officer and a pilot in the Vietnam War. After five years of active duty, he continued to serve as a pilot in the U.S. Navy Reserves, retiring at the rank of Commander with 20 years total active and reserve service.
He was employed with Delta Air Lines for almost 32 years as a pilot and flew as captain on domestic and international routes on several aircraft, including the Boeing 767 and MD-11. He also served as a proficiency and line check pilot and as a manager in the Flight Training Department for several years.
After retiring from Delta, Lee was appointed to the City of Austin’s Environmental Board, serving as board chair for several years. He was elected to the Austin City Council in 2005 and re-elected in 2008, and served in Place 1 until 2009.
When Lee was elected Mayor of Austin in 2009 and re-elected in 2012, the nation was facing a major economic recession. He made it his mission to pilot the city through economic and financial turbulence by focusing on the fundamentals. He helped make Austin’s economy one of the strongest in the nation by focusing on targeted business recruitment and job creation.
He championed many regional transportation and infrastructure projects. He was a strong advocate for the City’s veterans’ programs, for which the City of Austin received the Freedom Award from the U.S. Department of Defense. He also established the Commission for Seniors to address issues associated with aging populations.
Lee was the recipient of many awards during and after his public service. For the year 2014, The Austin Chamber of Commerce named him the Austinite of the Year, the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce named him Outstanding Community Leader, the Real Estate Council of Austin gave him the annual Community Service Award, and he received the State of Texas Veterans Commission Leadership Award.
In 2015, he received the Polly Scallorn Community Trustee Award from Leadership Austin, and in 2017, he received the Lady Bird Johnson Humanitarian Award from the central Texas chapter of the American Red Cross.
Brewster McCracken
Brewster McCracken is president and CEO of Pecan Street, a research and commercialization institute focused on the utility industry and headquartered at The University of Texas. Mr. McCracken was one of three global smart grid project leaders invited by the government of Japan to present at the one-year anniversary conference for the reconstruction of Fukushima in March 2012.
In 2013, Smart Grid Today named him one of the nation’s “50 Smart Grid Pioneers,” and GreenBiz.com named him to its VERGE 25 list of 25 U.S. smart grid leaders. He is the author of numerous research reports on customer energy use. He was elected to two terms on the Austin City Council, serving in a city-wide at large position. Through his elected position, he served as a board member of Austin Energy and Austin Water, founded and chaired the city council’s Emerging Technologies Committee and led the city’s collaboration with The University of Texas to establish technology incubators in bioscience and wireless technologies.
Prior to holding elected office, he practiced commercial litigation for nearly a decade with two large international law firms. He is an honors graduate of The University of Texas School of Law and Princeton University, and he holds a master’s degree in public affairs from UT’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
Nan McRaven
Dr. Nan McRaven is the owner of McRaven Consulting, a Public Relations and Government Affairs firm, located in Austin, Texas.
Before starting her own firm, Nan held positions in the private, non-profit, and government sectors. Her work experience includes: Texas State Director of The Trust for Public Land; Senior Director, Freescale Semiconductor; Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, Motorola Inc.; Vice President of Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce; and Personnel and Budget Director for Travis County.
Dr. McRaven holds a bachelor's degree in government from Sam Houston State University, a master's degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, and a doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Texas at Austin.
She was elected to the Austin Community College District Board of Trustees in 2001 where she has served as Vice Chair and Chair and is currently in her third term. Nan participates in numerous community, business, and education organizations including Texas Society of Architects, UTEACH, Community Colleges Association of Texas Trustees, the National Association of Community College Trustees, Texas Student Success Council, and the University of Texas Alumni Public Policy Council.
Thomas Miranda
Thomas Miranda is Founder & CEO of Sparkovation Advisors, a management consulting & technology advisory firm focused on Digital Business Strategy, Digital Transformation and IT Modernization.
Thomas served as an engineer, manager and executive over 15 years with high growth Fortune 100 firms HP, Dell and mostly Cisco. He held roles of increasing responsibility and leadership across product development (R&D), Governance, Enterprise IT and business strategy during a time of explosive growth, market disruption and change. He has been responsible for Enterprise wide strategy and business transformation efforts across complex functions and has led teams to deliver innovative, complex, flagship networking / computing products from concept to market across Consumer, Enterprise and Service Provider markets.
Thomas founded and served as Cisco’s inaugural Latin American employee organization’s CTO serving the Americas & Europe and spent time with industry thought leaders and innovators at Cisco Ventures to seed billion-dollar ideas across global markets.
Today, Mr Miranda’s consulting firm delivers value for entrepreneurs, executives and Fortune 500 firms through Digital Business Strategy, Digital Transformation and IT Modernization project services. He is personally committed to serve his community and has done so through serving as a recent Chairman of The Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Boards of Leadership Austin and the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and currently on the Boards of Mission Capital, Austin Ed Fund, Texas Lyceum and the Austin Area Research Organization. He graduated from The University of Texas at San Antonio with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical & Computer Engineering and has earned project management and executive leadership credentials from George Washington University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pike Powers
Pike Powers is a super-lawyer-turned-entrepreneur whose leadership helped turn Austin from a university town into a high-tech powerhouse. Powers, a 1962 Lamar University graduate honored in 1978 as the Lamar Distinguished Alumnus, was partner-in-charge of the Austin office of Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., from 1978 through 2004. He remains of counsel to the firm. He has also joined Duff and Phelps recently, resident in their Austin office. His leadership promoted a new creative spirit in the capital city - one that seized on global opportunities for economic development. That effort began in the governor’s office where Powers led in rallying the community toward the goal of landing the most prestigious economic development prizes of the early 1980s – the Microelectronics Computer Technology Consortium (MCC) and Sematech.
For the past 30 years, Powers has played an integral role in developing the Austin regional technology economy. Through his leadership in attracting landmark research and development operations in the 1980s (MCC and Sematech) and employers (Applied Materials and 3M, among others), Powers has helped advance the region’s high-tech, information and entrepreneurial economy. He has been a principal participant in mobilizing Austin’s ever-growing high-tech community to create a business/civic/philanthropic network. As a board member of virtually all of the Texas technology groups, Powers is a civic entrepreneur who advises Austin’s emerging technology leaders on creating new companies and shaping the region’s collaborative future. From his days on Gov. Mark White’s Science and Technology Council from 1983-1986 to Gov. Rick Perry’s Science and bio-Technology Council from 2002-2003, he has been active in the business community and in legal and charitable organizations at the national, state and local levels.
Powers was and is a leader in creating the Texas Technology initiative, established in 2002 to redefine and reinvigorate the collaboration between government, academia and private industry. In response to this strategy and the need to stay globally competitive with incentive programs, the State of Texas created a $295 million Enterprise Fund in 2003 and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund in 2005. He was vice-chair of the $200 million ETF Fund and remains active as a chair of the Energy Initiatives Committee of Innovate Texas, a state wide non-profit aimed at encouraging new companies to apply to the emerging Technology Fund for start-up funds. It works with all six Texas University Systems.
Chris Riley
Chris Riley served on the Austin City Council from 2009 until the transition to single-member districts in 2015. He has since earned a master’s degree in Urban Placemaking & Management from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Chris was born & raised in Austin, and graduated from Harvard College and the University of Texas School of Law. While working as an attorney, Chris co-founded the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Austin Neighborhood Association, and served as its president for five years. He also served on numerous city boards and commissions, and chaired both the Planning Commission and the Downtown Commission.
Chris currently provides consulting services on land use issues. He has returned to serving as president of the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association, and also serves on the boards of a number of other non-profits, including Bike Austin, Austin B-Cycle, and the local chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism.
John Scarborough
John Scarborough currently serves as President of Deep Eddy Vodka, leading the entire Deep Eddy Vodka team as they approach their goal of becoming the #1 premium American Vodka. Scarborough has served the Austin-based Deep Eddy Vodka from the very early days of the company’s development. Since 2011, he served as Chief Financial Officer for Deep Eddy Vodka, leading the organization’s operations, financial management and planning functions. In that time, the brand has grown to become one of the hottest spirits in the industry. Prior to Deep Eddy, his experience includes financial and operations leadership positions in publishing, telecom and ecommerce, including serving as Vice President of Finance and Operations for RCR Wireless News and Vice President/General Manager for TelecomCareers. Scarborough received his Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University and his Master’s degree in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin – The Red McCombs School of Business. He and his family reside in Austin, TX.
Randi Shade
Randi Shade is a community volunteer and full-time mother of two. In 2008 she was the first openly gay person elected to serve on the Austin City Council. Previously, Randi was the Executive Director of the Austin Entrepreneurs Foundation and the Founder and CEO of an Internet company she sold to a publicly traded company in 2005. Randi also served as the Founding Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service (now OneStar Foundation) where she was responsible for launching AmeriCorps in Texas. Under Randi's leadership Texas was awarded more money to support AmeriCorps programs than any other state. Randi earned an MBA from Harvard University in 1992 and before that a B.A. from the Plan II Honors Program at UT where she was elected student body president in 1987.
Robert Thomas
Robert D. Thomas of Austin was appointed Chair of the Texas Facilities Commission by Governor Greg Abbott in September of 2015 for a term to expire January 31, 2021. Robert D. Thomas is an attorney, businessman and founding principle of the Thomas Consulting Group, a business strategy consulting and advisory firm. Robert's entrepreneurial business strategist experience includes advising business and organizational growth from start-ups to established companies across wide ranging industries. In addition, he has been a business owner and CEO, and a valued partner to other CEOs and Boards of Directors, providing laser-focused insight translating into increased operational efficiencies and gains in revenue and profits. His broad-based business and legal experience has been instrumental in resolving complex business challenges and facilitating growth and business solutions to meet demanding objectives.
Robert's community engagement includes service as the Tri-Chair of the Austin ISD Community Bond Oversight Committee and as a member of the Austin Community College Bond Oversight Advisory Committee, with the mission of ensuring that public bond monies for major construction and renovation projects are expended with the utmost efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Robert has also worked to strengthen Texas communities as a former gubernatorial appointed board member of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. In addition, Robert is a Rotarian, a member of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Real Estate Council of Austin, and is the former Chairman of the Board of SafePlace. Robert holds bachelor's degrees in Political Science and German from Loyola University, a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.
Bruce Todd
The Honorable Bruce Todd has spent a lifetime in the public arena—as an elected official for more than a decade in the ’80s and ’90s and currently as Travis County Commissioner Precinct 2, a seat to which he was elected from 1987-1991 and to which he was recently appointed to serve again, thanks to a vacancy created when an incumbent resigned.
As Austin mayor from 1991-1997, he led the second-fastest growing city in the nation to record levels of job production and environmental protection and spearheaded the conversion of Bergstrom Air Force Base to a $500-million civilian airport. He was head of the successful joint city/county effort to preserve thousands of wilderness acres in Travis County and was instrumental in the effort to involve the community in youth programs and to provide school-to-work opportunities for Austin students.
During his first stint as Travis County Commissioner, Todd was behind a push to centralize the county’s road improvement program under a centralized management system. He supported tax-incentive packages that become the cornerstone of Austin and Travis County’s job creation effort.
In the private sector, Todd has extensive experience in financial planning and in turnarounds for troubled companies. Todd has served on a number of regional, state, and federal commissions, including as presidential appointee to the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and a member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Advisory Board. He also served as chair of Mayors United on Safety, Crime and Law Enforcement (MUSCLE—a coalition of Texas’ largest cities).
Todd continues to serve on a variety of boards and committees for the benefit of the public, including Austin Community College’s Center for Public Policy & Political Studies, the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council (current Executive Committee member) and the Long Center for the Performing Arts (board member).
Lemuel Williams
Lemuel Williams is a 15-year technology and business executive professional who has extensive experience within various positions such as: Program Director, Product Management, Business Development and Channel and Alliances. All with local companies which include Dell, Inc., Uptime Devices, Inc., Bazaarvoice, Inc., Gemalto, Inc., and SailPoint Technologies. Lemuel is the Partner Manager at Duo Security based in Austin, Texas. In his current role, he is responsible for creating, maintain, and expanding security partner relationships nationally by providing two-factor authentication tools and techniques for securing enterprise organizations.
In 2007, Lemuel was appointed to the City of Austin Technology and Telecommunications Commission. He has served his fifth term as chair, overseeing an 11 member group which advices city council on issues ranging from community technology, telecommunications services, allocation of annual financial support, smart city development, autonomous vehicle regulations and evaluation of the performance of franchise holders. Under Lemuel’s leadership, he helped create the City of Austin’s first ever Chief Innovation Office, revised the Imagine Austin plan to include a community technology component, made recommendations on 100 GoogleFiber® connection sites, create an on-going residential technology study on digital divide, increased funding for non-profit grants from $100K to $200K and in 2014, formed a resolution for the passage of Distracted Driving. He is also Vice President of Williams Strategies which focuses on providing organizations solutions on cybersecurity technologies and polices, non-profit organizations advocacy and digital inclusion strategies, communication and development plans. His area of expertise focuses on working with enterprise organizations CISO’s and executive teams to execute various security and authentication development plans.
In addition to these positions, Lemuel serves as Chair, of The Seton Forum, past Chair of LBJ Future Forum, Board of Directors Annette Strauss Institute and City of Austin of Austin Technology Commission. He has won several awards as Austin Under 40 Technology and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin – Concordia Emerging Leader and is a graduate of Leadership Austin’s Emerge. Lemuel Williams is a graduate from The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s degree in Geographic Information Systems.