The Nominating Committee of the Houston Audubon Board of Directors recommends the following slate for election to the Board of Directors. The election will be conducted online in May 2021. Write-in candidates will be allowed.
New Board Members
Rob L. Jones, Director. Rob is a private investor and corporate director. He is President of Basalt Investments LLC and is a corporate director for Affiliated Bank Holdings, Susser Petroleum Partners, Shell Midstream Partners, and Spire Energy. Rob earned his Bachelor’s and MBA from UT-Austin where he currently teaches a class in the McCombs School of Business. He has served as a member of Bank of America Foundation, Friends of Mandell Park, Habitat for Humanity, and The Children’s Fund.
Eric Mayer, Director. Eric is an attorney and partner at Susman Godfrey LLP. He is licensed in Texas, New York and Louisiana and handles litigation in both common law and civil law jurisdictions. He earned his bachelor’s and JD at Tulane University. He is a Past President of Jewish Family Service and former board member of Jewish Family Foundation. He is also active in Houston Volunteer Lawyers and former member of Texas State Bar Pattern Jury Committee.
Margaret Pierce, Director. Margaret is retired and previously worked professionally as an Investment Manager. She earned her bachelor’s at UT-Austin, MBA at UH, and is a CFA(Chartered Financial Analyst) She is a Harris County Master Gardener, Garden Club of America Horticulture Judge, past Treasurer for Garden Club of Houston and Memorial Park Conservancy, served as President of Garden Club of Houston as well as many other roles within that organization.
Renewing Board Members
Janeen Judah, President-Elect. Janeen is an independent corporate director for 3 energy firms: Patterson-UTI, Crestwood and Aethon Energy. She retired from Chevron in 2018 after spending the last 15 years managing global or international regional teams. At Chevron, she managed global organizations for environmental decommissioning and remediation and petroleum engineering technology and regional teams for Latin America engineering and geoscience and Angola/Congo projects and subsurface. She started her career with ARCO in Midland. Janeen was also the 2017 international President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, chairing the board of a large global professional association and is on the boards of other national nonprofits and foundations.
Janeen serves on both Texas A&M and University of Houston College of Engineering Advisory Councils. She has B.S. and M.S. degrees in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M, plus an MBA from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and a JD from the University of Houston Law Center. She is also a Board Governance Fellow with the National Association of Corporate Directors and a member of the Houston chapter of Women Corporate Directors. She divides her time between Houston and Bryan-College Station, but started birding on Galveston Island.
Bill Matthews, Secretary. Bill Matthews has over 25 years of experience in oil and gas from technology adoption and consulting to hands-on expertise in the search for new reserves. He has held senior leadership positions at both Schlumberger and Landmark/Halliburton resulting in unique perspectives and in-depth knowledge of leading E&P technologies that reduce risk.
Previously, he was the global marketing director for Schlumberger’s software division for geoscience and reservoir engineering applications including Petrel. At Schlumberger, and in earlier global roles at Halliburton, he managed consulting projects that ranged from technology reconciliation to E&P advisory for prospective basins for conventional and unconventional reservoirs.
Bill began his career as an interpreter and joint ventures for renowned wildcatter Moncrief Oil for ultra-deep prospects and drilling wells from the Rockies to the Gulf Coast. He has a Master’s in Geology from Rice University, Houston, Texas and a B.S degree in the same from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
Bill enjoys birdwatching and photography especially at Houston Audubon’s gems in the UTC.
Bob Westendarp, Treasurer. Prior to his retirement in 2014 upon the sale of the company, Bob served on The Board of Directors and as CEO Americas for the Griffin Global Group, a company he co-founded in 1996 that had grown to be the largest global provider of transportation services for crew in the offshore oil & gas and the shipping industries.. Other business experience before Griffin included practicing as a CPA in the State of Texas through his own regional CPA firm for 13 years, forming and managing an NSDA broker-dealer, co-founding a land development company, acting as managing general partner for numerous syndicated transactions including a parking garage in downtown Houston, a Hilton hotel in Florida and various other properties. In the not-for-profit arena, Bob has been a member of the Board of Children at Risk for 8 years and served as Chairman from 2012-2014; and a member of the Board and Treasurer for the John P. McGovern Health Museum. Bob graduated from Rice University in 1971 with a BA in Economics and Accounting.
Skip Almoney, Director. Skip was born and raised in York, Pennsylvania and educated at Lowell Technological Institute and Lehigh University. In 1970 upon receiving his PhD in Nuclear Physics he came to Houston to work as a geophysicist for Texaco in Bellaire. During the next 31 years he worked in a variety of petroleum exploration positions for Texaco including over ten years in international exploration. He took early retirement after the merger between Chevron and Texaco and has spent his retirement time with various volunteer endeavors. He began bird watching in the summer of 1993 before being transferred to Indonesia for a year. When he returned to Houston he joined the Ornithology Group of the Outdoor Nature Club and has served that organization as Vice-Chairman and Chairman. He is a certified Texas Master Naturalist and as a member of the Houston Audubon Society has served on the Board of Directors and worked as a volunteer on workdays at High Island and Bolivar Flats, as a mentor at the Boy Scout Woods rookery, and as a goods salesman at High Island. He has lead birding trips throughout Texas for both Houston Audubon and The Ornithology Group. He has birded on all continents. In 20104, he cofounded Friends of Mandell Park and over ten years raised over $1 million to rebuild Mandell Park into a beautiful city park that includes Meredith Gardens.
Lucy Hutcheson Barrow, Director. Lucy is a fourth generation Houstonian. She graduated from The Kinkaid School in 1977, attended Vanderbilt University for 2 years, and graduated from University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in Psychology in 1981. Following college, she earned her Paralegal Certificate from the Southwestern Paralegal Institute, and she began her career in the real estate and corporate sections of Liddell, Sapp, Zively, Brown & LaBoon, a large Houston law firm. Later she worked as Legal Assistant to the General Counsel of The Mundy Companies, a contract maintenance firm mainly serving the petroleum industry. She presently manages Hutcheson Minerals LLC, her family’s mineral business, as well as Lounel Properties LP, a family real estate business.
Since 2003, Lucy has been actively involved with the Garden Club of Houston, serving as its Horticulture Chairman for 2 years, as well as organizing the Perennial Booth for the annual fundraiser, the Bulb and Plant Mart, for many years. Through this affiliation she has made many friends and acquired knowledge in the areas of Conservation, Horticulture and Community Service. She is particularly interested in understanding the interdependence of pollinators and birds with native plant species.
Lucy grew up loving wildlife and being in the Great Outdoors. She and her husband, David, have 3 grown children and are active members of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. She enjoys hiking, fishing, gardening and birdwatching.
Tony Dang, Director. Tony works at Energy Transfer as a Manager in the Rates & Regulatory Affairs department. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Houston. His love for birding started during a spring migration in High Island, Texas, which gave him an appreciation for bird migration and conservation. His passion led him to become a member of Houston Audubon’s Young Professional Advisory Council (YPAC) from 2019 through 2020. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, birding, golfing, spending time in nature, and spending time with his wife and fur babies, Alby and Siri.
Tim White, Director. He has over 30 years of experience in the environmental field with extensive experience in environmental regulatory requirements, processes, and policies at the federal, state and local levels. Tim is the President of Environeering, Inc. and a Registered Environmental Manager with the National Association of Environmental Professionals. He has been involved in environmental assessment and restoration projects involving wetlands, grasslands, and riparian woodlands. Tim is an ardent birder, golfer and outdoorsman. He is looking forward to serving on the Houston Audubon Board.
